I'm not too clear on what the rules are, so every time I hear CARB approved or not it always confuses me. Why would an air intake system need to be CARB approved? Shouldn't you as the owner be responsible to make sure your car stays within the legal emissions limits?

So let's say you put on some mods that cause more emissions, but you put in higher capacity cats, or maybe even a 3rd one. And with this change your car would pass the emissions test. Why would it still not be street legal? I don't get these people.

-Thanks

 

.... Everything that you put on the engine that effects the flow of gasses in or out of your vehicle must be CARB approved (ie: must have a CARB sticker somewhere mounted on the part or vehicle). Without it a SMOG station will automatically fail the visual inspection. No tC can have headers and be CARB legal atm because of the design placing some whatchamacallit in the stock header. But you wont reall have to worry much about any of this because all new vehicles have a 5yrs (I believe) grace period before their first SMOG test is needed and essentially you could swap your car back to stock and then back to modifed after passing the test.

 

Same goes for intakes on the tC--none are Carb approved. If you get pulled over and they make you pop your hood, you are looking at a hefty fine and a lot of expense to get back to stock. That being said--a lot of people skirt the law.

 

That's so freaking stupid. There's SUVs would dirty up the air more than a cat-less tC, not to mention drive up the price of gas (supply and demand thing). Man I'm so sick of California and it's hippy laws.