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Anyone recently pass CA smog check with a tune?

rallytaff

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#3
I have a Stage 2 tune and was reduced from Stage 3. No other mods apart from a COBB d/p which I replaced with the original. Readiness showed evap system problem. Had it pre-checked and it showed up. Went for the big one and it passed. The problem was not serious enough for a fail.
 


Dialcaliper

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#4
I haven’t tried it myself yet, but the previous owner of the car had an Accessport (which came with the car) and several dizzy/stratified tunes in addition to the Cobb tunes that come with it. He simply flashed it back to stock (Cobb Stage 0), drove it until the drive monitors checked out, and took it for CA smog with nothing out of the ordinary.

He immediately flashed it back to one of the aftermarket tunes for the test drive.

As long as you’re on stock, Cobb Stage 0,1 or 2, you shouldn’t have a problem. If you are worried about it, go to the smog shop and pay for a “pre-test” that won’t be reported to the state - they are available to do things like verify smog repairs before going for the “real” test.

The only catch is you pay out of pocket for the pre-test, with no “pass or free retest” guarantees, and then you have to pay for testing again for the real deal.
 


OP
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Thread Starter #5
I have a Stage 2 tune and was reduced from Stage 3. No other mods apart from a COBB d/p which I replaced with the original. Readiness showed evap system problem. Had it pre-checked and it showed up. Went for the big one and it passed. The problem was not serious enough for a fail.
Was this recently? They started checking for check sum digits in July 2021
 


rallytaff

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#8
I haven’t tried it myself yet, but the previous owner of the car had an Accessport (which came with the car) and several dizzy/stratified tunes in addition to the Cobb tunes that come with it. He simply flashed it back to stock (Cobb Stage 0), drove it until the drive monitors checked out, and took it for CA smog with nothing out of the ordinary.

He immediately flashed it back to one of the aftermarket tunes for the test drive.

As long as you’re on stock, Cobb Stage 0,1 or 2, you shouldn’t have a problem. If you are worried about it, go to the smog shop and pay for a “pre-test” that won’t be reported to the state - they are available to do things like verify smog repairs before going for the “real” test.

The only catch is you pay out of pocket for the pre-test, with no “pass or free retest” guarantees, and then you have to pay for testing again for the real deal.
If you speak to the tech nicely, as I did and explained my position, he did the pre-test at NO charge. Needless to say, I rewarded him when the test was complete for being honest!
 


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#10
So, for you guys who have passed so far, did you have the Cobb CARB decal, and if not, did your smog guy gripe about it?

I'm going early next year, don't have a decal since I pieced together my Stage 2 stuff from parts here on the forum. My smog guy is a get-in-get-out deal, and doesn't even open the hood sometimes, but if he does, I've got the PDFs printed out from the Cobb website. Just curious if that has been an issue for those of you who have smogged already.
 


rallytaff

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#11
I had them and showed them after he passed me. Didn't really have any interest. I too am on a Stage 2 tune but had no problem. It's all OBD2 stuff now, no rollers!
 


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#12
Good to know! Sounds like my smog guy. If he has to have a conversation with you about the car, he figures he's wasting too much time.
 


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#14
My main area of interst and question here is the tune portion. I know there's no more rollers and tail pipe test, and there's always the visual which some places may be more thorough than others and some things may catch certain testers eyes more than others, so there is grey area but you kinda know what you're up against.

But the tune is a question to me. So any aftermarket tune will put the ECU into non readiness state and the smog computers recognize that and auto fail? To not have this you revert to the stock tune, dive for some amount of miles to get all sensors and ECU back into readiness state then you're good to test?

For my car in its current state, this proposition is honestly not that big of a deal, stock turbo etc so the stock tune wont hurt anything. But I have hopes and dreams of a turbo at some point, where having the stock tune could be bad. In that scenario would it just be run the stock tune and DO NOT get on the throttle and it'll be fine with just easy driving? Cause swapping the turbo out every 2 years for smog would be something I don't want to deal with.

All this being said, my car being a '17 I have at least another couple years before my first smog test. So whatever path I get my car down (turbo, whatever) I want to know what Im up against before I get there
 


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#16
New_Daily, I can address your question from the reference point of another vehicle, which failed due to a non-ready state. I had replaced the cat and O2 sensors on my van, which is very high mileage and threw a code for the cat.

After installing new 02 sensors, I drove for a few hundred miles before going in for my smog check. Still, the sensors kicked back a "Not Ready" state as soon as the tech plugged into the ECU, which automatically stopped the test, and the tech told me to go put a few hundred more miles on the van before I came back for another try.

You could try the Pre-Test route if you're worried that your ECU might not have done enough drive cycles once you put it back to stock tune and go for your test. Maybe tell the tech that you installed a new O2 sensor to replace a damaged one and you want to see if it's ready for testing.
 


koozy

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#19
A question to be directed towards the aftermarket tuner for a clear answer. Tuners play by their own rules with whatever leeway they may have. The main thing is they should not tamper with the I/M monitor sensors and keep parts compliant.
 


Mikey456

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#20
Very interesting. So I guess the question is: do the Cobb OTS tunes handle readiness state differently than aftermarket tunes? Apologies if this is something that has been answered and covered before.
Very interesting. So I guess the question is: do the Cobb OTS tunes handle readiness state differently than aftermarket tunes? Apologies if this is something that has been answered and covered before.
If you look at Cobbs website it has the Carb Exemption numbers for the 2014-2016. I think Mountune covers for the same years. So the readiness state should be the same otherwise the company would probably not get an Exemption order number. The other aftermarket companies did not apply and pay for the exemption order, but it does not they will not pass smog.
 




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