I know this is a topic that has been beaten to death, but my end goal here is to have a DEFINITIVE answer to the question that has plagued many of us motor heads for some time now.

My blower blew the cats out of my car some time ago, and I had them welded out to prevent the motor from exploding in case the honeycomb clogged my pipes. I've been riding with expired inspection since April now and it's time to get the thing done.

I just had the cats programmed out and was under the impression that I would pass, because in the state of Texas you can pass with one not ready. However, I had three: catalyst, 02 sensor, and heated 02. I know that if you have the right tune, you can just change the value of the 02 sensor instead of turning it off and these codes won't be thrown. BAMA won't do this, which I semi understand but it's still a pain in the *** (seriously, I just dropped $400 bucks on this thing just change one value for me).

Next up, the nonfouler trick. This is where you take spark plug nonfoulers, bore them out, and pull your 02 sensor farther away from the pipe until it reads the right amount of flow. I've made these but haven't put them on yet. With a blown motor and shorty headers, I figured 2 nonfoulers a sensor should do it. I'm going to get the sensors turned back on and try it and see what happens.

Please please please let me know what y'all think, like I said, I'd like to have this thread be helpful. Luckily I have a lot of time to figure this out so any suggestions I can try out.

 

Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't - Doubled non-foulers would not work for me

 

I am also from Texas, and I know that in a county that is EPA marked as "attainment," there is no sniff test. They only do a visual inspection to make sure the emissions controls are there.

What you might be able to do to pass this visual is to put on only the shells of an empty catalytic converters in your exhaust system.

Caveat: I do not know if "attainment" counties still do an OBD II plug-in to read any "P" errors. If they do, your only way to pass that is to purchase a tune from someone else who will change the values for you.


Non-attainment counties: Some Texas counties are EPA marked as "non-attainment" which means you MUST do a sniff test as part of the DPS inspection. Failure on the sniff test means you do not get your DPS sticker.
If you do not have cats and you have a blower, you're pretty much screwed. You cannot pass the sniff test, and I seriously doubt even the best non-fouler trick will work.

 

They won't do a sniff test. The guy I get my inspections done from in Austin will pass me for anything he possibly can, but he can't bypass the computer is the thing. I wonder if I could somehow edit that one value of the BAMA tune....

 

With the non fouler trick, The o2 sensors have to be on? I have to do it next year.

 

Yeah, the 02 sensors have to be on for that, because it still needs to sense the air that's going to be coming through it. I just had my tuning setup changed, apparently it should only throw one code now. Let me do a hundred miles of driving and I'll get back to y'all on this.

 

interested on how you manage to do this...
here in Louisiana you aren't even allowed one "not ready"

 

I've decided to just register the car in a neighboring county that doesn't do emissions to save me the headache. Only other thing I know that would definitely work is changing the bias on the rear O2.

 

I'm in Austin as well, where do you get your inspection done?

 

Well I'm not gonna get it done there now, I'm gonna head over to Blanco County. It was at one of those quick lube places I used to work at.