You couldn’t put a cat in a dump tube, they need to be hot to work effectively, and they heat from catalyzing. In a dump tube, anywhere but the track, there’d never be enough continuous exhaust flow to get the cat up to temp. At best the cats would die in a few thousand miles, at worst you’d never be able to get clean…

NY has annual safety and emissions inspections. Safety consists of check lights and horn. Emissions consists of plugging in the OBDII reader. If it’s pre-’96, no emissions inspection at all.

Unfortunately, a large number of our cars (ones we still own and ones we’ve owned) have had less than 17-digit vins. The NYS inspection machines flat out refuse to believe they’re real cars, just because the vin is only 5 characters. Sorry it’s from 1950!

Well... Most street cars have diagonal circuits, FR/RL and FL/RR are connected together, so if one side fails you still have brakes... But if all the fluid comes out (every time the brakes are used some would go out of the bleeder until the master is empty) neither circuit can generate braking anymore.

RockAuto. The dealer doesn’t sell them for the older car anymore (despite the fact it’s still the same on the current models.)

That’s what I’m saying- the car had to have been compliant to be sold new, the cat must have been, so any replacement one must have ALSO have been compliant, but not certified. As soon as certs were required the price went up, implying the increase was due to the certifications.

Re the pedal switch: What came to mind immediately was someone with a normal right leg but weak or inflexible left leg, to a degree that would not have let them emergency brake, since the brakes take more pressure than the gas. Just an idea.

I find that very hard to believe... Seeing as the car was CARB legal when produced, any replacement built to OEM spec would have been CARB compliant, but didn’t need to be tested as such. Maybe it had a denser core, but if that’s true you would lose performance from it since it would no longer be OE.

DERP, yes, I meant CARB, not CAFE. Stupid acronyms. The point is, the same product, made by the same manufacturer, with the same part number, went up almost $300 once NY had to meet CARB. Same part. Triple the cost.

FYI, the original Camaro 5 thread has been updated, and at the very last posts (as of an hour ago) the person arrested was found on FB, messaged, and replied that all the charges were dropped against him.

WTF are you talking about? I’m saying, before CAFE rules were put in place in NY, a new OE cat pipe was $300 less than now. I said nothing about high flow or likewise. Their prices weren’t affected anyway, since (DUH) they aren’t technically emissions legal, and therefore don’t have to follow CAFE.

The problem with extractors... Usually the threads are so stuck the head sheared from being unable to turn them. You're not going to get more force with an extractor... And you can break them, too. Drilling a hardened steel extractor to try another extractor is the definition of aggravation.

If you can point me to a place to find a set of metering rods and seats for my old Carter carb, so I can finally fix the pig richness (yay <12 MPG) that'd be great...

I think the only semi-reasonable argument for test pipes is the price difference. For my car in NY (which follows CAFE rules for cats now), the price difference between the pipe and a new cat is almost $400. Before CAFE it was only about $100.

The NOx sniffer is only done in a few specific counties in NY. I don’t have them, it’s just OBD II plug in.

Wait, who or what would you sue?

This guy is now putting a gas turbine in a Nova.

Aesthetically, I agree it looks wonkey. Having driven an XJR with it, it's actually completely intuitive, save the reverse kick/catch thing. The weight is just right you can lightly kick it into any position you want, you don't have to push it into the position you want and try not to pass it, it just falls into place…

I'm not really sure it's fair for one brand to own a FIA Racing Class name...

Turbo Hudson? I think I was trying to find him a few days ago to show some friends a turbo drag racing Hudson!