twin-turbos illegal???

I heard that it is illegal to have twin turbos in your car in california. Is that true??? If it is...that really sucks!!:rolleyes:

sseriously doubt it- sosidering that there are Toyota Supra Twin Rurbos and Ferrari F40's in California- HOWEVER they have to pass emissions testing

Its really hard to pass the emissions tests, especially with a car that has a lot of mods done to it.

Originally posted by Jimster
sseriously doubt it- sosidering that there are Toyota Supra Twin Rurbos and Ferrari F40's in California- HOWEVER they have to pass emissions testing

The F40 is Twin Turbo? Crazy shit, I always thought Ferrari made only NA motors...

-Grendel

Ferrari 288 GTO and F40 were the most notable of the turbocharged street cars. Ferrari also built the 208 Turbo back in the early 1980s to avoid taxation (in Italy) on engines over 2.0L.

No, its not illegal. I used to own a Nissan 300ZX Twin Turbo

I know many people have VR4s in California and they all have twins in them.

i believe in CA & NY its supra tt that are not legal because it wont pass the strict emissions

If the car was built to California specs, it is legal in that state (and New York). Supras and 3000GTs were offered legally in those states even with turbocharged engines.

There are non-turbocharged cars that weren't offered in California trim, so it has nothing to do with the turbochargers specifically. It all has to do with meeting the CARB emission regulations.

I heard that it is illegal to have twin turbos in your car in california. Is that true??? If it is...that really sucks!!:rolleyes:


No, its not true.
911 turbo/gt2, Cayenne turbo, S / CL / SL 600 , Audi A6/ all road 2.7T are all sold in California legally.
Any car can be sold in California if it meets the California emission standards.

i believe in CA & NY its supra tt that are not legal because it wont pass the strict emissions


that was with the 98 supras only
turbo supras were sold in California before 98

Im guessin you guys are talkin about factory turbos. I see no reason they wouldnt pass emissions tests.

there are a few sportscars out there that come stock with twin turbos.. i guess there aren't that many of them out there because of the stupid emissions standards in the US

It does boil down to the emissions, but there are hints at the two different sides of this issue all in this thread.

For factory turbocharged vehicles: It doesn't matter how many you have. It all comes down to what the manufacturer has to do for it to meet the CARB emissions requirements. This is the number one reason that the auto hobbyist world needs to fight ridiculous CARB/CAFE standards changes. Some changes are good, and I agree that clean air is important. But I also feel that strangling the new cars with emissions equipment and stradling the corporations (who then pass to us) with the costs to attain emissions levels not feasibly possible in an internal combustion engine. Those standards are what make it difficult to keep forced induction cars in the new models lineup. Keep in mind that twice as much air will need twice the fuel to burn. That makes twice the emissions (in general, don't reply with all kinds of science). Keep in mind that the corporations are straddled with meeting emissions requirements across their entire lineup as a whole.

For personally modified vehicles: You cannot add twin turbos to a vehicle while under emissions jurisdiction. The CARB laws state (so this applies to all states that use the CARB set of laws) that nothing in the "engine" can be modified. They define "engine" as the point where the air is measured for fuel calculation (or the carb for non-FI cars) to the catalytic convertor. Hence all the cat-back exhaust systems. To change anything between these two points requires a CARB EO #. Which means that the COMPANY (individuals aren't even allowed) has to do a lot of testing and paperwork and pay for licensing. Now we know why a full exhaust system is over $1000 and a cat-back is only $300. It's not the parts, it's the other BS required by law. Knowing this, we can see that adding twin turbos (or even one) is vastly illegal. You would be changing the intake tract (illegal), the fuel mapping (illegal), exhaust manifold (illegal), and so on. This is all handled by the manufacturer when they submit their new car for production and it goes through all the government testing.

If there are more questions on this, throw those up too....

at the same time, if you ask a high way patrol man, or actually look on the CA highway patrol site, it casually states under commonly asked Questions that any mods you do are legal but ussually won't pass emsions.

on the plus side, pre 74s are exempt, its just 30 years back, in a few years the 1st generation RX-7s will be exempt.

Could you possibly find a more vague instruction than that...what is the CHP thinking putting that out?

Going as drastic as adding forced induction to a normally aspirated car might not pass the sniffer, but more than a few power mods have been PROVEN to IMPROVE emissions. The first one was the use of tuned headers back in the 70's when all this came about the first time. Headers have been proven to increase mileage, and power while reducing one of the emissions molecules they test for (I don't remember which one right now). Most "reprograms" of ECU's still pass sniffer tests. It is not written that making power has to be noxious. Some end up that way, some don't. Mainly on the old carburated (sp?) engines where you don't have finite fuel controls.

I understand the CHPs desire to put up such a broad statement. I just wish they were more realistic in handling the hot rodding world.

One other thing...

1st Gen RX-7s were 1979-1985. You have more than a while before they are smog exempt. Also, along the same lines, understand this common misconception - The exemption is only from the sniffer test. You are still required to maintain all factory installed and federal/state required smog control equipment. I personally know a few people that had early 70s Novas, pulled the cats off and now have big tickets for disabling factory installed and federally mandated smog equipment. The exemption doesn't mean that you don't have to use the smog equipment, it just means that you don't have to get it checked every two years anymore.

It just means that no one is checking except for safty checks and maybe a snooty cop. Just cut the cats open, clean em out and run the pipe right through it and weld it back so the weld faces the underside of the car. The inspector looks, the stock cat is their, and the sniffer doesn't care. You just have to be smart about these things.