[BarryJB]

Originally Posted by Joe Bob

IF your guy has done it before and he has a guy he has gone to.....great. But anything that hasn't been looked at or approved before is something that I would get a blessing for BEFORE putting $$ into it and building it.

I worked for the smog nazis for years and I know that efforts, while making sense to the client and the applicant's engineer, can be shot down w/o prior approval. Whimsical interpretation is alive and well when it comes to getting something certified by CARB, BAR, DMV or any other regulatory agency.

When it comes to governmental approval, asking permission as opposed to not and asking forgiveness later doesn't work.

All duly noted, and it was such that almost persuaded me to not even go this way and simply rebuild my trusty (up to starting to make odd noises at 1/3 million miles) 3.2. Six months and the 95% of the $ in already, and this is the crux of the (hopefully considered) risk of doing it.

Hmm, until you present the vehicle to them to see what's done so far for them to approve/disapprove, how you can get prior approval before spending and doing? Seems all one can do is read the rules, take a deep breath, do your best, then take care of stuff that isn't OK - negotiate what can be and fix what can't. More $ and more time, sure. I'm utterly upside down with this old car anyway, nothing to do with economic sense. Put off remodeling my kitchen twice now - my priorities bite me every time I cook

Patience and a cooperative non-confrontational approach seem to be factors in most of the success stories... there are quite a lot of post-73 3.6 conversions running around CA now that are now legal (like yours!), so it has and can be done, and that's my wish for mine too...
The saga continues... hopefully not too many more months.