Ok i was shopping around for my 2002 ss camaro online, and all of them said that they can sell and ship to 49 states except california, now i live in california so that got me ticked off. They told me that i have to go through the dealership in cali to get on. Now does the california version suck? does it lower the noise and performances of the car?. why is it band in california ? If i get the others i wont pass the smog test supposly.

 

all aftermarket cats are "illegal" in cali for our cars. they want you to go to the dealer to get a stock cat

 

Horses ***. The rest of the country is adopting Cali smog. At least no one else is doin the CARB thing. I dont understand it if it passes emissions what does it matter if its stock or not, its doing its job.

 

i never said i agreed with it, just saying how it is

 

Not blaming you just had to rant.

 

two choices:
1) keep searching for a vendor that doesnt care about CA laws... you can sell almost anything as long as they advertise it as 'for off road use only'. like your money isn't good enough for them.
2) just buy a used one of a member on this site.

 

I ordered two magna flow performance cats and they where delivered to me for just over $300.00 for both. No Smog shop is going to know the difference even if they do look. Also I changed mine cause I was pulling codes P0420 and P0430 cats below efficiency threshold. These codes will not allow the Cat Readiness Test to pass, and it is the only test that has to be complete, any other 1 of the 7 or 8 codes and be incomplete and still pass. I put these on and past the test. The Magnaflows where an okay fit, you will have to adjust your y-pipe and I don't like how the pipes on my driver side meet, not at a straight angle. Also they are much lighter than the stock cats.

 

so just to give you a heads up.. as of january 2009.... the caliornia board fails..
they passed a law that All cat's needed to have a carb oe number. If you replaced your cat before 2009 then you are ok. however if you replaced it and it does not have a carb oe number then you are screwed. it is illegal for any shop to install/replace cats with hi-flow cats that are not carb legal. What this means for us is that we are all screwed. and yes because everything now has to go to carb.. a CA state legal cat costs 4 times as much..

 

+1,

That's the way it is, period. Most aftermarket companies will not ship off-road cats to california anymore since January.

I wanted to replace the cats on my 04' silverado, & only catco has an EO for it. Technically it is federally warranted to 80K mi. but if you think they have failed before that time, you very well may be S.O.L

On my 00' SS I used the magnaflow stock replacement when my pass side cat failed(collapsed) had no problem ordering from summit, but this was over a year ago.

Nobody wants to mess with this new Jan 09' regs. They will fine the shop that performs the install something like $5K, and you $5K.

It sucks. but I'm sure they have stock replacement EO CA legal cats for the LS camaro, just as was mentioned the CA legal cats are very near twice as much, or more....

 

do you need a stock replacement, or are you trying to replace your working stockers for aftermarket junk?

stock cats for 01-02 cars have extended warranty to either 100 or 120K

 

as of right now i dont know of any aftermarket hi flow cats that are carb eo however i could be mistaken

 

There are none. As of right now, only 3 companies can sell cats in cali that are specially made for the new regs. They all cost probably north of 500-600$ for our cars. The only difference is a stamped number on the side of the damn thing, but guess what they need money so they cost 4x more than a normal cat. I wouldn't be surprised if you see a GPS installed on every car soon and they start taxing you on every mile you drive in this state. Thats what it boils down to really, they don't give a **** about the environment, just new and creative ways to raise revenue.

 

Actually, everywhere else the EPA requirement for non-OEM cats is 8 years/80k miles for 1995 and newer vehicles.

http://www.epa.gov/OMS/cert/factshts/catcvrts.pdf

California Catalytic Converter Laws :
http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/aftermk...ftermktcat.htm

In the state of California, it is not legal to replace an emissions sensitive device without the replacement part having an exemption from CARB.
(Even if the aftermarket cat burned cleaner than the factory one it fails visual because it's not the factory equipment).

We're more strict than the EPA here, and none of the aftermarket cats for our cars have EO#'s for California CARB, AFAIK. I think Magnaflow is/was working on it at one point with their new spun metallic cats.

Rob (Bad30th)

 

Magnaflow has a few that are carb legal right now, there was a list floating around theres only 3 companies on it. Sweet ride you got there, I think I've seen it before. (I'm pretty sure I bought a 10 bolt off you a while back)

 

Hey ! Yep, that was me...

The only CARB legal Magnaflow/Carsound cats for Camaro/Firebird are for 3.8L V6, AFAIK. I sent a contact at Magnaflow a PM to find out current info on where they are with certification or if they are working on the 5.7's.

Rob (Bad30th)

 

I live in Cali & it just kills me with all these new laws. Like someone said it's all about the money the great golden state can make!

 

Rebuild them. The dealer wanted like 1300 to replace my 2 cats on my 2000 SS in 2007. I had them rebuilt for around 550 bucks for both. But then again that was two years ago.

 

does the dealer have to put them on too?????ifso thats some bull..

would my car run right if i were to run a 224/114 lsa cam

 

Catalytic converters need to be in the proper heat range to work corectly. OEM engineers have decided that the distance they put the cat from the engine is the most efficient location to reduce emmissions. Further away (IE LT headders) and it may still be within the acceptable range it just isn't the best.

Cali want's nothing but the best for it's citizens. The only way to ensure that is to make it mandatory to follow the OEM engineers and require OEM parts in stock locations. You can have it installed anywhere, but GM protects its intrests by being the only supplier of the GM OEM part.

 

If you search around the internet people have found ways to get around smog checks. not that I would do this or anything