Hell, cover it up with a sheet of paper for the pics.

In this case G.O.A.T. stood for “Go Order Another Truck”

*adjusts engine removal labor time to 0.01 hours*

Floating in the summer sky

I thought it handled GREAT.

Wanna go down a rabbit hole? Look at the patents for these things to find out a bit about how some of these were done. Crazy.

I may not hit bottom but I will bang the shit outta the sides.

After you crest that mountain, you then see the even larger peak to climb:

My sons see these in his shop almost daily (Euro shop on the edge of a lower income area) and tells me horror stories about these from people who buy them used for $5-10k and enjoy a variable-length honeymoon. They’re great - until they aren’t. Several a month make the trip from the shop down the street to Pick and…

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Definitely this thing over a similarly priced Prowler without a frigging doubt.  2 more cylinders, an extra pedal *AND* a tailgate?  Are you kidding me?  There isnt any comparison.

Yeah, most of the time if it looks OEM its gonna get by. I did catch a couple guys with the low-mileage JDM Toyota 21Rs. Those didnt fly as a replacement for the 22Rs but if you as the tech werent aware, they could get by if they took the time to make it look presentable and OEM.

If the intercooler is behind the bumper and the under valance is in place then its probably fine *unless* the tech can see something like anodized fittings or the aftermarket name emblazoned on the fins. Caught those a couple times lol.

I would agree as well. One thing is that during a visual inspection, the tech is not required to disassemble or move anything. If its buried from the OE, about all they are going to do is check the hoses and stuff related to that part that they *can* see and if that looks good then its a pass.

Maybe the CAI is, but I bet at least the DP isnt. I tried looking at the CARB EO Database but they dont let you look up EOs by vehicle, you have to have the EO number to look up what it fits and I aint doing that research.

A smog tech that wants to keep his license is going to look fairly hard at these things. Slipping in a non OEM part is the kind of stuff the Bureau likes to do when they are building sting cars to catch guys.

Former CA smog check guy here. Unless these parts have gained approval from the California Air Resources Board then yeah - the cold air intake, down pipe and possibly more would make it fail emission inspection.

Thanks.  I totally agree that it is a good vehicle for someone as long as they understand and accept the compromises they may not otherwise know they are making with this.

It’s a great price for what it is, but as others are commenting - the modification while cool has impacted the structural integrity of the vehicle in a significant manner. The high strength steel has been hacked out of the B-pillar which is designed to slow the intrusion into the passenger compartment and transfer…

While I agree with most of what you’ve said, there definitely have been compromises made in the structure of this vehicle. High strength steel has been removed and unless they crash-tested these after conversion (they didnt), there’s no way its going to survive a crash as well as it would have prior to the mods. The…