As Pete said, getting a properly tuned CIS car to pass is pretty easy. You can make an 81-83 car run as clean as most new cars. Get your 02 systems working, and learn how to adjust your mixture. Early cars,73-79, before inspection, turn you mixture a little lean,turn the idle up a bit, bring it in hot.

My son has a '07 Charger Hemi (California) with Flowmaster Cat-back exhaust, cold air intake and 85MM throttle body. The young punk running the test told my wife that all that stuff was illegal! Told her that there was no crossover in the exhaust.
Took off the throttle body because the Mfg. did not certify it (no E.O. number), Called the Mfg. of the cold air intake and got the E.O. number, and jacked the car up and took a picture of the crossover to show the guy, who didn't even look for it the first time. Plus it was a Cat-back system, legal as long as it wasn't too loud (it wasn't). Took the car back in the next Saturday and called the guy an A-hole for telling my wife a bunch of crap. That brought out the owner who bent over back-wards to pass a completely legal car (minus the 85MM throttle body).
Point is that they do look for illegal stuff before running the code reader, and fail a lot of cars that way.
Bob B

First of all, good for you son. Second, and I was not there, but unless the young fella was being rude to your wife, what business is it of yours to get in his face for making a mistake? I think you're right for pointing out the mistake later, but wrong for calling a young and inexperienced person an "A-hole" for not knowing all about your car. I mean your kid's car.....or wife's car, I dunno hell

no smog ca counties
 

Some counties don't require smog for renewal. You have to smog it once then nothing. I have a place in mariposa county and no smog for dmv renewal. I register all my cars with that address.

Rusnak,
Don't see where the confusion is, my wife took my sons car in to be smogged. We had the same car smogged twice at that facility, and it passed even with the 85mm throttle body and shorty headers. The headers cracked and were removed.
All he had to do to verify the cat back system was lay down next to the car with a flashlight and see that the two pipes running side by side down the middle of the car were indeed hooked together, and that the cats were still installed. That's his job, that he had apparently been doing for over a year and a half.
Then he tried to tell her that the cold air induction was made for a Dodge truck! Even though the EO number was on a sticker plainly visible near the hood latch. So that's batting one for three. And my 65 year old wife doesn't need a bunch of BS from some young punk who thinks he knows everything.
Bob B

And here we get to the sticky part-- so long as we can keep the old parts going then we'll pass visual. But some of us like to tinker or will ultimately opt for EFI for the flexibility it offers. And we will not have the chance to pass unless a referee inspects and approves-- seems unlikely to be possible.

And another thought, how does Singer get their cars smogged in Cali with a total non-original setup?

Nice 69, here in California there is a big big push by CARB to crack down on smog shop operators. The new penalties are huge for passing a car that either should fail or for any reason does not meet the newer, strict requirements. It is worse in the LA basin let's say, than Eureka or Crescent City because CARB gets it's power from the Federal EPA and Dept. of Health laws.

Anyway, all that aside, understand the shop guy's point of view and their situation. They see this non-stock vehicle and it's a problem for them. You can understand this I'm sure, and maybe it would have been better to go in there yourself to help them deal with the modifications and understand them. If it was my shop, I'd probably be happier testing the stock Ford Astrovan than a Porsche or modified hotrod.

They act like we drive these cars every day. That may be true 10-20 years ago, but most people use these as hobby cars. Smog equip.? how about no a/c or heat!
We need someone with an open mind and understands the hobbiest point of view or we just get put in the same pot as beater/junk cars.

^^^I respectfully disagree. My son and I were on the way to his school a couple of weeks ago. Suddenly it got real smoggy, so much so that my son asked me what the foul smell was. After checking out traffic ahead of us I spotted a '60s vintage Pontiac. I pointed to it, and said, "That's the polluter."

Sure enough, we made our turn soon after, and the Pontiac continued on to its destination. It was a very nice looking car, obviously well-cared for, and didn't smoke. But man was it foul. It was only about 50 degrees F, but we put down our windows to clear the polluted air from the cab of my truck (which took at least a city block), well after no longer following that old sedan. Multiply that by a few hundred/thousand hobby cars and you start seeing those cars on the road, and start having trouble breathing while behind them.

There was a time when I thought that CA smog laws were too strict. Not any more, and it wasn't just that Pontiac that changed my mind. The biggest problem with hobby cars is that there is no recognition regarding what's going out the tailpipe. That Pontiac was exempt from smog testing, but it was probably being driven with only seven functional cylinders, or an out-of-adjustment carburetor. What came out the tailpipe was almost thick enough to cut with a knife, and the driver was probably blissfully ignorant, or didn't care, about the pollution he was creating.

To add cars to the potential polluter category that once were fitted with proper pollution control devices, and have been tinkered with, is unacceptable. There are already enough "hobby" cars in CA without adding a large number of cars that should comply, but have simply been tinkered with, to that total. That Pontiac spoiled the commute for many drivers that morning, and I am happy that it's not even a once-a-month occurrence.

Agreed. This is why I spent $2k to have a custom dual cat system created so that my "tinkered" car was also a good citizen on the road. :)

For sure, being a gross polluter is different from having your Porsche being forced off the road by CARB.

When a 911 that will otherwise pass smog fails because a single wire is disconnected, there is a problem.

One can always bring up extreme one-off cases for the sake of argument. Internet boards are filled with such people who will do that. But only for the sake of arguing....

That's strange. I only test every 2nd year.

What year is your 911? Anything after 1980 can do the drive by sniffers, so i can't even do those, I have to go in.

Last year, Boulder failed my visual for not having the air pump, so I installed it and went to Broomfield, where the guy failed the visual for not having the air injector tree installed. I had to wire in the air injectors so they looked like they were hooked up, and then it passed.

Ever. Damn. Year. I have to do this. Drives me nuts.

Craig, they are that strict about the visual but the custom exhaust is no problem for you? Maybe thats a difference between CA and CO. If I understand correctly anything other then a stock exhaust and California approved cat shouldn't pass in Cali.

Pete, I'd love to know more about your exhaust and experience with getting this setup past the referee. Post a link if its in a thread, or post here (or a PM if you'd rather.) Thanks.

That explains it. My car is an '86. I didn't realize that when they rewrote our laws they nailed you guys in the middle with annual testing. My 914 and 912 both made the cut for collector plates and my '86 gets tested biannually like my DD. Sorry you have that hassle.

Though I understand why they did it. When they first set up the drive-by testing they claimed it was only for our benefit and not "enforcement". What they left out is that they were gathering data. They found a ton of gross polluters hiding under collector plates. It was a lot of vehicles like 1978 Ford F150s and Broncos, but still everybody with something later than the cut off date got hit with the new standard.