CA/LA Smog

[WestBankM4]

Question: can cali police pull you over just for smelling cat-less fumes?

I've seen CHP that are knowledgeable about cars and others that aren't, sort of luck of the draw. My buddy is running catless and the CHP officer that pulled us all over before the Bay Bridge got out and one at a time walked the line citing specific things. I got dinged on my M4 for the headlights being too low in congruence with the ground (not more than 54" and not less than 22"). I have M-Performance coil overs so raising it and fixing it was easy, my buddy without cats though, not so lucky. The Chippy actually got down on his hands and knees and inspected his car from underneath with a flashlight. When my buddy popped the hood it was game over, no cats visible top or bottom and he got a State Ref fine. Going to the state ref to pass is a lot more difficult, they're absolute sticklers.

[SteelGreyM]

Question: can cali police pull you over just for smelling cat-less fumes?

[jet_dogg]

I'm gonna put a fake carb sticker on my csl airbox.

[old///MFanatic]

A lot of misinformation here... for CA STAR you WILL NOT pass visual with ANY modifications done to the engine period if the smog tech is doing their job.

They can pass if it’s CARB exempt with an EO (Executive Order) number. The product will have a sticker on it with the EO number for the tech to lookup and pass visual.

[Jimbo's M]

Honestly for most people the easiest method will be a reflash to a stock tune and throw a set of cats in section one or someone can make one and rent it to others lol. If you have a pre-05 M3 with a csl airbox, get a spare dme (hp or non doesnt matter) and have the vin updated with stock software and rewire your maf and throw the stock manifold back on. Anything more you'll have to get creative as the name of this game has always been being one step ahead of these slimy fucks AKA CARB.

Seems fleeing like everyone else would be a hellofalot easier than that...

[thegenius46m]

A lot of misinformation here... for CA STAR you WILL NOT pass visual with ANY modifications done to the engine period if the smog tech is doing their job. Most are because the auditing process has gotten very tight the last few years. I have friends who are smog techs that have told and shown me the procedures. It is not worth a 25k fine and their license stripped to pass you for $40. If you find a guy who is lazy, great, but you simply got lucky no ifs ands or buts. My M3 when stock failed with a macht schnell intake BOOT and nothing else. I literally had to go home and swap it to pass.

I kinda stopped caring about this lately as my M3 no longer is registered in this state but it sounds like they are not enforcing the checksum on pre ~08ish cars. So that means you can pass with modified parameters (aka tune) and relocated cats in a spare section one and pass. So basically nothing has changed in the process for our cars to my understanding.

All you need to do is force the readiness (if missing emissions hardware) and complete the drive cycle for the monitors to set and you are good. I did this 5yrs ago for CSL and us software without cats and got the monitors set but never needed to actually use it as I had other avenues to pass each time.

Honestly for most people the easiest method will be a reflash to a stock tune and throw a set of cats in section one or someone can make one and rent it to others lol. If you have a pre-05 M3 with a csl airbox, get a spare dme (hp or non doesnt matter) and have the vin updated with stock software and rewire your maf and throw the stock manifold back on. Anything more you'll have to get creative as the name of this game has always been being one step ahead of these slimy fucks AKA CARB.

[Nate047]

Yea sooo which smog shop did you go to? Asking for a friend lmao

[skristedja]

Great news! Do you know what modifications Kassel made to the euro csl software to get it to work? Also I think we are m3 twins. I also have an 03 steel grey on imola red with a CSL box

[174bpm]

This is good news for those who wanna go with a CSL box in CA. Nice to know that you still had the Euro CSL software on there too.

[jet_dogg]

Congrats man but there is no actual tune on the ecu right?

[old///MFanatic]

I have had the CSL intake for about a year now and have been needing to get it re-registered…Long story short: I passed w/out removing Intake and still running the Euro CSL software (my MSS54 was converted to HP to utilize the MAP), also it was done 100% legally.
yes, 100% legally. I didnt pay xtra, I dont "know a guy". I just went in to see what would happen. I have no issue throwing it back to stock manifold, but for me i was more concerned with the ECU side of things.

Hi, glad it passed. But it is not legal. The shop was incompetent. That should have failed the visual for emissions related parts removed and or changed. That shop could get major fines and lose license. Reading the monitors is only part of the test.
Happy you don’t have to worry for another two years. 👍🏻

[Thrifty S50]

Howdy yall, this will be my first post here on NAM3F. I was a long time member on Bimmer forums but unfortunately seems like less and less people frequent the forums over there...

Introduction aside, I am also Californian w/ a CSL intake. You might have seen one of my videos circling the threads here by chance

https://nam3forum.com/forums/forum/m...engine-bay-mic

Needless to say I have had the CSL intake for about a year now and have been needing to get it re-registered this January, something I was more then hesitant about doing. Long story short: I passed w/out removing Intake and still running the Euro CSL software (my MSS54 was converted to HP to utilize the MAP), also it was done 100% legally. And well, because the internet bible clearly states "Picz or it didnt happen"



Short story long version:

yes, 100% legally. I didnt pay xtra, I dont "know a guy", and im not interested in registering out of state. Simply, I just went in to see what would happen. I have no issue throwing it back to stock manifold, takes all of like 45 minutes maybe, but for me i was more concerned with the ECU side of things. I had specifically asked KASSEL (who did the MSS54HP conversion) to make sure that my US emissions monitors were still present after said conversion. In my mind, they dont have US Smog in Germany, so why include it in their software. This would have left me with a car that didnt even communicate to the smog computers.. Well, so, we have this conversation regarding emission monitors, and the cars, ECU's, our favorite foods, etc; and while im told that this is something that can be done, It was made clear that it wasnt exactly 100% bullet proof and that sometimes the computers still arent able to comm. to the MSS54HP, but that it should work.. I figured if it didnt, I tried everything I could and I'd just buy a spare virgin ECU and use that for smog. No biggie.

Well I had the car down for awhile while I was doing the rear subframe + XBrace, and after getting it running I needed to smog and register asap. The first thing that made me want to just go try it was that im still on stock US headers (w/cats), still have rear 02's, and still have stock section 3 (ditched my aftermarket exhaust as induction noise is just Devine). So technically, I mean the car should be capable of passing smog since all of that was still in place. Also, one thing I had considered as justification for not removing it, was that it kinda looks stock. Ok follow me on this one, For years these techs have been trained to spot cone filters. They usually see giant RED or BLUE hot air intakes. Not this giant piece of carbon that looks like its a piece of the car. As long as you dont have the Turner box, and w/ the CSL BMW decal, it looks the part. Especially compared to current Gen BMW's, its not that out of place for a BMW to be stock with a bunch of carbon.





The final kicker was I took it to a friend of mine who runs a shop, we hooked it up to ISTA (i believe) and he was able to verify that the emissions monitors were present and ready/active. You ever go to get smogged and they tell you "oh your cat and 02 sensor monitors arent ready, you have to do the driving procedure to ready the system". I figured, if those were registering and active, then why the hell not go for it. In California at least if you fail the first smog, you get one more at no cost to pass, so if I didnt, I wouldve just came back w/ Virgin ECU.

I know that was a really lengthy post, but I hope it was insightful to some who may be in the same position. An S54 with a CSL intake is truly how these cars were meant to be, hope more of you join the darkside 😈 Cheers 🤙

[Daniel]

Or, you can try forcing post cat o2 monitors green/complete via software which will put you in the same position of passing the obd2 portion of smog test, but fail visual (if the tech looks.

maybe my wording wasn’t clear but this is what I was referring to. I’m not worried about visuals I just need o2 to be complete.

I see someone a bit back in this thread had success with it. Anyone else?

[Tbonem3]

So who has coded out their post o2 cats and got through CA smog?

That's not a thing.

You can relocate cats and still use post cat o2s and pass the obd2 portion of the test, but possibly fail visual.

Or, you can try forcing post cat o2 monitors green/complete via software which will put you in the same position of passing the obd2 portion of smog test, but fail visual (if the tech looks).

Or you can do whatever you want and find a guy who will "pass" you without a test for $.

My tech doesn't poke around or look under the car.

[Daniel]

So who has coded out their post o2 cats and got through CA smog?