jimxo

This may be a dumb question, but do CA emissions on the GS (or any car) make it slower than a GS from another state that may have more relaxed standards?

lex400sc

All cars in the United States are manufacturered the same as far as emissions. The only thing that sucks for us is that we can't mess with the catalytic convertors on our cars to improve exhaust flow otherwise they don't pass smog (especially OBD-II). In some states, they don't even smog and for all they care you can drive around with open headers all day. Some states use higher octane gas than 91 therefore they may have slightly improved power strokes. IMO, I think our fairly high compression cars would fare best with 93 octane.

alexus

iTrader: (1)

um.. no

all cars are the same.. i bought my last 3 cars which was out of state and i didn't change a thing..

rominl

iTrader: (4)

the only problem is that we can only have those stupid oxygenated 91 here....... that hurts a lot

Hermosa

Not really, the third cat started out as only a California spec item in the SC400s. After that I am not sure if out-of-state cars got them standard as well. Now before you post to reply if you do have the third cat please write down the year of your SC as well as what state the car was originally purchased from by the first buyer. These cars do get around...

meZoom!

actually i heard that my 95 ES is 5hp less than the same model in other states. and i just got a smog check and i when i got my report back, i notice that in one of the categories i BARELY passed. so, i dunno what that tells you but california emissions laws suck but i guess with all the cars running around we need it.

lex400sc

The ODB-II standard was set on ALL auto manufacturers inside the United States by EPA, SAE, and CARB effective January 1, 1996. Many manufacturers started making cars OBD-II complaint back as far as 1994 though. This means that all cars from 1996 on should be universal, and many 1995 models as well.

GSquicksilver

whatever happened to octane 92 we used to have in cali like a year ago?

mooretorque

California quit letting us Arkies **** in 93 octane and then send it ya'lls way, "watered down"... :eek:

jk

meZoom!

same thing i was wondering. all the gas stations had to put 91 stickers over the 92s. i'm hoping the gas is still the same.

lex400sc

Cali premium octane dropped from 92 to 91 last summer largely because of the ban on MTBE. MTBE is the current octane booster they're using in our gas, but it corrodes and leaks into ground water so CA is junking it across the board. The new additive, ethanol, is a patented Unocal blend, which will cost non-Unocal refineries more to make (royalties). So in order to combat rising costs (and lower profits), they dropped the octane to 91 because it was cheaper to make. Of course we still get screwed in the end because we're paying the same and getting lower octane, but 91 is still safe for luxo cars. Not optimal, but safe. FI cars is a different story though...

UTGS400

California does have higher emission standards than any other state but that should not effect your cars performance. A GS has ultra-low emissions which easily meets the CA emission laws. The only thing that would slow your car down is the type of gas in CA. Can 93 octane gas be found anywhere in California??

rominl

iTrader: (4)

yeah i am very interesting in knowing that. i am in north cali btw.

i know in south cali, west LA (close to westwood if you know where it is) there is a 76 gas station where you can get 100 gas. but it comes at 5 bucks per gallon. you can constantly see cars like porsche and ferrari pumping gas from there. and usually what they do is to pump in 2 gallos of the 100 and then use 91 for the rest

lex400sc

Yeah, what rominl said. There are some really old relic Unocal 76 stations scattered around that serve 100-octane at around $6.00 per gallon. You can search for them at www.76.com . They are the only ones in CA that have higher than 91-octane.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

umm..... how do i search that on their hp? i really wanna find one here in san jose area