Anthony, I think you're right. I plan on keeping the car a long time and would hate to hassle with it a few years from now. Maybe I should at least think about installing small cats on the exhaust. I hate to think about bracketing and plumbing a smog pump. I'd assume space is tight enough with just an alternator and water pump. I've never seen one on any conversions. What are the CA conversions doing for emissons controls?

Every conversion I've seen uses a 70-73 chassis since they are smog exempt in CA.

The legal way to do it is to say take a 79 Corvette engine, install it in your 914 with all the original smog equipment, go down to the official state run Smog Referee, and tell them you've installed said engine.

They inspect it and test it to 79 Corvette standards. If you pass they give you a new sticker for your engine compartment so that you can have it smogged anywhere in the future.

Now if you go buy a new Chevy crate engine but tell the referee that it is a '75 engine I don't know if they can tell by the engine's serial number.