Yeah, now that FM HAS a CARB legal turbo kit that is a solid option, but that's only been available for what, a year now?

Is FM willing to sell you the "make up parts" to convert your previously purchased FM turbo kit to a CA emissions legal spec FM turbo kit and also send you a sticker? Will they do this for someone who bought a "used" kit, or do you need to be the original purchaser? That's a legitimate question because I don't know. For decades your only option on a 1.8 was BEGI, and while they have an EO for the kit they've been physically incapable of supplying the correct parts to meet the requirements of the EO as it had been submitted for at least the last 10 years. That wouldn't however stop them from selling you a kit with a CARB sticker, but that's like the shadiest business practice ever. If you were cursed with a 1.6 there was always the CARB approved Greddy kit, as Joe explained earlier.

If someone gave me a CARB legal FM turbo w/CARB EO sticker for my NA I'd install it without hesitation. Unfortunately I don't have $4200 burning a hole in my pocket and nobody seems to be willing to give me turbo stuff, and $4200 is one hell of a cost of entry. Instead I'm ******* with a dumpsterfire of a M45 JRSC because I CAN get an EO sticker for it.

Plus I'm apparently some sort of masochist.

But none of this really applies to the OP anyway because he's got a Trackspeed EFR based kit in a NA6 with a BP6D swapped in. Lots of layers to that onion.

 

Call FM.

 

no u

 

Meh...already have a kit.

 

Wow. Lets clear this up a bit. There is only one carb EO number and it covers 89-05. There is one exception and FM has been upfront with this issue. That is the 99-2k CA cars with 2 cats. The 99-2k federal cars in CA can use the standard kit legally. There is an approach that seems to work for most and that is the don't ask don't tell. On mine I run the FM1 with a 1.8 in an early NA6. I just have made it look stock. FWIW I have not put my sticker on because I run 2 hoods and the sticker is fragile. I just keep a print of the CARB doc in the glove box.

 

Good idea to keep docs in the glove. Might have to do that...but honestly, I haven't been hassled much. The last SMOG tech just looked it up.

 

Guess who's got a CA Emissions spec twin cat NB1? lolol Suffice to say I'm very aware of the issue. It's quite literally the only NA/NB you can't* legally turbocharge here in California. I've considered selling it on multiple occasions and picking up a Fed spec NB1 so I can do legal turbo things, but its almost impossible to find a clean one at this point that isn't a million dollars or that hasn't been "bad touched" by someone

As long as you understand that's illegal (technically 2 violations, engine swap AND trying to pass it off as legal turbo is REALLY going to **** off a judge) and you are willing to take that risk and accept the consequences, that's fine. You do you. But I'd think twice about recommending such things to people who don't necessarily understand the insanity and the nuance in our emissions laws. All you need is a cop having a bad day and you are fucked.

Understand that I'm posting from a purely legal standpoint here, for me there is no grey area. If you want to do shady **** and hope that waving a handful of papers from the glove box will keep you out of trouble when you get pulled over that's fine but I personally can't endorse that, and certainly would not do so on a public forum. My **** stays legal because I've seen first hand what can happen if you roll the dice and lose. I've been a passenger in a car that's been pulled over by the CHP, had the hood popped, pictures taken and vehicle impounded. I watched the owner go through months of legal bullshit with the court system and thousands of dollars in fees and fines, and repeated appointments with the BAR Referee to not only get his car back but get his registration reinstated. By rights, the judge could have crushed his car so this was the "he got lucky" outcome. That was the big reason I abandoned the Kraftwerks Rotrex that was on my NB and sold it at a huge loss when it became obvious that the "CARB EO Pending" was never going to pan out. To me, running it in violation was not worth the risk.

* BEGI used to sell a turbo manifold and downpipe setup that accepted the NB1 precat, but they've been out of production for probably 10+ years now

 

Not that I am arguing...but wouldn't a carb legal mod on a illegal swap just be an illegal swap? Or is the EO tied to the car and not the running gear? Reason I ask is because clearly running gear matters in the case of state vs fed NBs.

 

I speak for everyone on this forum. I have a ban hammer, and enjoy fighting other peoples' battles.

You done? If so, acknowledge by saying nothing at all.

 

Smogging in CA is a bummer

 

^ He didn't understand the instructions.


Edit for clarity: deleted all the prior bullshit which led to this.

 

Yep, illegal swap is illegal. In the case of a legal swap it is tied running gear. On an unmodified car its tied to the chassis. In this case because we are talking specifically about FMs CARB EO its a semantics argument because that one covers 89-05, but clearly 1.8 manifold isn't going to fit on a 1.6 so you can't claim you've installed a CARB legal 1.6 turbo kit on your illegally 1.8 swapped NA6 chassis. You don't get to pick and choose like that.

The chassis kinda doesn't matter assuming the engine swap was done legally. You could put this 2003 Miata drivetrain and all its emissions equipment into a 1976 Pinto (a vehicle which must pass emissions in California) and after its approved by the Referee, it'll have to meet all the requirements of a 2003 Miata and it'll SMOG like a 2003 Miata. You can't install a CARB legal supercharger kit that was approved for the 1976 Pinto with the 2.0 Lima after the 2003 Miata drivetrain swap, but my understanding is you can install a turbo kit that is approved for a 2003 Miata. Again, this assumes the Miata drivetrain swap was done in a legal and approved manner.

As a highly intelligent and autistic *******, were I feeling especially nefarious I could remove the emissions routing diagram from under the hood of my CA Emissions NB1, install the FM CARB Legal turbo kit and then "don't ask don't tell" about the missing pre-cat. Or better yet, I could buy an emissions diagram sticker for a Fed Spec NB1 or any NB2 direct from Mazda because it'll show a single cat in the system, and the year isn't printed on the sticker. Hell, maybe I buy a whole damn NB2 hood. My point is that with the knowledge I have of how the system works I could come up with a half dozen ways to fly under the radar, but that doesn't change the fact that FMs turbo is not a legal install on my CA Emissions NB1, regardless of how legal I make it look. You can play that game if you want but the juice isn't worth the squeeze as far as I'm concerned.

I'm great fun at parties too.

 

That's pretty darn clever.

I'm not sure if it would work without also installing NB2 headlights and front bumper cover. I have heard anecdotally from people trying to retrofit NB2 projectors into the NB1, that things don't quite line up.


Anyway, I'm one of those guys who drove around San Diego for years with a very highly modified Greddy system on my '92. Basically, the turbo and manifold were the only pieces left from the original kit. Well, the RRFPR was still there, though I'd gutted it internally and blocked off the vacuum port.

But I did have the sticker on the firewall, and fortunately I never got hassled about it at the inspection station. Choosing your inspection station wisely is part of it. No money ever changed hands under the table, but I did go out of my way to patronize a one-bay shop way out in the grungier part of Vista, with a few dozen nonfunctional motorcycles scattered around, run by a guy who looked like the 1970's movie version of an auto mechanic.

Obviously, this can't be taken as a blanket assurance that everyone will always get away with that sort of shenanigans, but in my very small sample, it's not an ineffective strategy. Just one that carries risk.

Via occasionally tagging along on weekend canyon runs with the San Diego Miata club, I got to know several of the other folks there with forced induction vehicles. I don't recall seeing a single one of them which would have survived a trip to the referee station, though a few did have Bell or Greddy stickers.

Actually, that reminds me. When I first bought that Greddy kit, it actually came with everything EXCEPT the sticker. Fortunately, Irvine is not a long way from San Diego, so I actually drove to their US headquarters, along with my receipt, and explained the situation. The guy I talked to was weirdly casual about it. He walked over to a dispenser of CARB labels (literally, a spool of them mounted in a tape dispenser like you'd see in a mailroom) and tore off two of them and handed them to me. For some reason, I'd always envisioned those as being stored inside a safe which required two keys to be turned simultaneously.

I may or may not have sold that second label...

 

NB1 and NB2 hoods are dimensionally identical, the point of the NB2 hood would be the emissions routing diagram on the underside

Source: I have NB2 nose and MSM headlights on my NB1, hood is definitely not a factor. Also have spare hood in the garage that came from a silver NB2


Intent was to cut it up for vents but I never got around to it. Test fit was fine with NB1 & NB2 front end hardware

 

Interesting. I'm honestly not sure where I got that from, then. Someone definitely had a fitment problem with something.


As to my previous post, I was younger then, and stupider. And I'm not recommending that course of action, merely making an observation. I'd undoubtedly have made different choices today. But then, such is life.

 

lights and bumpers changed NB1 vs NB2, but not hood. For what little that is worth.

 

I always understood that the bumper and head lights were different between the NB1 and NB2, but the hoods were the same. If I recall correctly, you can put NB2 headlights into an NB1 with the existing hood and bumper, but the bumper will not meet the bottom of the lamps (i.e. there will be an ugly gap underneath). To make it look right, you also needed to add the NB2 bumper.

Edit, ^^ he beat me to it. I type to damn slow.

 

That's terrifying. Was there anything else going on that led to the car being impounded? In all the other accounts that I've read from people who get pulled over and ref'd they received citations.

 

Unrelated hypothetical: what if I decided to visit CA in an out of state modified Miata and got pulled over? My state doesn't require a front tag or any type of vehicle inspection whatsoever. We dont even have vehicle registrations per say, our tag is considered proof of registration so only thing needed is DL and insurance when pulled over...

 

If you're visiting...you're visiting. Out of state DL and insurance would cinch it. Of course, if you have a CA DL, you have a bit more explaining to do, and may be told you have two weeks to register, I believe.