How smog legal is this idea? #SN95/302

Right, so I've got a 1995 Mustang with a 302 with about 150k miles on the car (odo died at 145k so I'm guessing here). It leaks oil, it isn't what I'd call a snappy performer, I'm interested in a powerplant upgrade sometime in the next year or so. What I'm wondering is, could I go with a later Explorer 5.0, like from 1999 or later, and not have to try to cobble together an air pump and EGR setup to get the thing legal in states where this is strictly controlled?

I live in KS currently where we don't have any vehicle inspections of any sort. However, in the last few years I've lived in Pennsylvania and the Denver CO area, so I'm hoping to stay legal in a 49-state-at-minimum sort of way. I don't want to overly impact air quality so I want to have a clean burning vehicle but I never liked the idea of EGR and I really don't care for air pumps. I believe the 5.0's from the later Explorers did not use these technologies.

Can I show up at a testing facility outside of California and get certified with the later Explorer engine or am I entering a world of pain and hassle to get plates should I need to relocate back to Philly or somewhere like that? I'd like to start making plans and watch for good deals on an engine build that may start taking place this spring. Eventually I'd like to have a Megasquirt controlled 5.0 with EDIS, a mild CARB-legal cam swapped in along with good aluminum heads for the street, like the 1.90/1.60 Edelbrock Performer heads with the right CARB-legal headers and the factory Explorer intake. Since the 1995 Mustang was an OBD-1 car I am assuming I won't have to worry about anyone trying to pull an ECM code at inspection time.

Thoughts, suggestions, etc? Thanks GRM!

p.s. if anyone has some suggested hardware like a cam that is known to work well or heads that would be a great replacement for the Ed's (cost is as important as anything else but I don't want to buy junk) please add that as well.

I remember this being discussed frequently on Honda boards I used to be on all the time. I think the punchline was, if the motor was out of a newer car, you were good to go so long as all emissions controls were kept original to that motor.

I could be wrong, but that's what I remember.

I live in PA. I have a trubo swapped 2nd gen RX7. I have NEVER had a problem getting it inspected.

As long as you have a cat and it passes the sniff test, most shops don't care about that other stuff. Which imho is the way it should be.

In reply to wvumtnbkr:

It should be noted that I never actually tagged by car in PA so I didn't deal with that directly. I did get to watch Denver CO smog goons run my Olds on a rolling road dyno while connecting a computer to it to watch for codes thrown which it passed. So my exposure to this stuff is a little limited. I appreciate your input!

You mentioned staying 49 state legal, but here is some CA info anyway...
In CA if you do an engine update, you have to pass the emmisions for the engine (basically, whichever is newer - car or chassis).
I suspect that the same sort of logic (if that can be applied to lawmakers) should follow in other sates.

In reply to stafford1500:

The problem with California is the catalytic converter situation; a true 50 state pipe with CARB numbers is extremely expensive vs. the 49 state option. My plan there is a Magnaflow X-pipe with cats that at one time had 50 state status but has been knocked back to 49, per the research I've put into this issue. The cats on the car currently look original and I'm sure could stand replacement. The 50 state solution Magnaflow now sells is something like $1300.

Here's the wrinkle, pres. In CA, all pre-cat exhaust piping must be as in the original car. You're not allowed to alter either the length or diameter or O2 sensor location (if applicable). This is not applicable in practice but if everything is reasonably close and the workmanship is very good and you can show the referee you did your best to keep within the spirit of the rules, they'll give you a pass. Once your setup is deemed acceptable, you're good to go for a normal smog check until you alter the car again.

This is really going to be dependent on what States exactly you're talking about.

In CA, you could do the swap, get it BAR'd, get a new doorjamb sticker, and be good to go. And insofar as I know, a CA-legal BAR'd swap is legal everywhere else in the country.

However, I think that to do the swap legal in CA, you'd have to go whole-hog and swap to OBDII while you were in there.

In reply to Jerry From LA: There are CARB-legal headers, they are pretty similar to the stock parts, I was leaning towards coated BBK unequal length parts since they dyno pretty well and don't cause a lot of issues with spark plug interference. I don't think there are CARB-legal long-tube headers for the reasons you gave but that's alright by me. Honestly I don't see myself taking the car to Cali but famous last words...

In reply to RevDexter: An OBD-II swap would be anti-fun, not because I'm afraid of the actual swap, but because I'd really like to get my hands dirty with an MS instead of just sitting on them and talking a lot like I do now. It seems like a tall order though, to tell guys they have to rig an entire OBD-II swap into cars getting things like LS swaps and similar changes made.

Your swap is CA-ILLEGAL. You can't do a truck engine car chassis swap. Sorry.

Pull the entire wiring harness with computer from the donor vehicle. Install the OBD-II port under your dash.

In Maryland, anything with an OBD-II port gets its emissions tested that way. The hood isn't even opened. As long as you have no codes, you pass...

Ranger50 wrote: Your swap is CA-ILLEGAL. You can't do a truck engine car chassis swap. Sorry.

Um, no, not true. Truck vs car is irrelevant. That provision talks about light vs medium vs heavy-duty vehicles, aka cars/trucks vs Semis.

It's perfectly legal to swap the 5.0 from an Explorer into a Mustang, or vice-versa.

pres589 wrote: In reply to Jerry From LA: There are CARB-legal headers, they are pretty similar to the stock parts, I was leaning towards coated BBK unequal length parts since they dyno pretty well and don't cause a lot of issues with spark plug interference. I don't think there are CARB-legal long-tube headers for the reasons you gave but that's alright by me. Honestly I don't see myself taking the car to Cali but famous last words...

Yes, you can substitute headers if the part has a CARB E.O. number. This means the part has been tested, does not alter emissions adversely and has the durability necessary to uphold long-term emissions standards. If you're using a set of shorties with an E.O. number, and the manufacturer's part number is the came for the donor and recipient vehicles, you're good to go. It's a gray area when the numbers are different. Again, it's up to the referee.

In CA I think the donor also has to be under a certain GVWR and I if the donor was only available with an auto trans., then you gotta stick with an auto. Also, and Im not sure about this cuz its the interwebz, transverse mount to longtitudinal and vice versa is a no no.

In reply to Sky_Render:

A dead port isn't going to look good to an inspector and I was really hoping to use the MS. I'm not sure what an EEC V ECM from Ford is going to do when it isn't controlling anything. I may be able to rig resistors or similar simple components to fake the OBD-II ECM out but that seems iffy. Would need to do further research on that one.

Ranger50: From what I've read, as long as I'm using a light-duty class engine in a light-duty chassis (meaning under 12k GVWR or something similar) from the same OEM then I'm alright. This should not be an issue.

ReverendDexter wrote:

Ranger50 wrote: Your swap is CA-ILLEGAL. You can't do a truck engine car chassis swap. Sorry.

Um, no, not true. Truck vs car is irrelevant. That provision talks about light vs medium vs heavy-duty vehicles, aka cars/trucks vs Semis. It's perfectly legal to swap the 5.0 from an Explorer into a Mustang, or vice-versa.

It is very relevant. See the "engine change" section of this site:

http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/aftermkt/replace.htm

Engine changes are legal as long as the following requirements are met to ensure that the change does not increase pollution from the vehicle: ... The engine must be from the same type of vehicle (passenger car, light-duty truck, heavy-duty truck, etc.) based on gross vehicle weight.

An Explorer is a light-duty truck, a Mustang is a passenger car.

The original question was about 49-state legality, I don't know if other states have the same problems with engine types as California, but given that the vehicle types have different emissions requirements from the manufacturer I wouldn't be surprised.

In reply to codrus:

Hrm, good catch, this is somewhat unfortunate. I'd love a legal way to ditch the air pump and EGR from my 5.0, this seemed like a two birds / one stone solution, wondering if there's a better route or if I just 'do my best' and keep CA rules out of mind on the build.

How about a very well done rebuild? Seems like you are just opening a can of worms with the swap.

There are no requirement for OBDI, so it can't be checked. And it's not super hard to make a car do well with emissions. Even a 5.0.

If you want the important parts off the Exolorer, use the heads, maybe the pistons, and maybe even the intake. Probably even can use the front cover which should have the EDIS wheel (and I can't recall if the last 5.0 was EDIS or not, but by '95 it should).

The best they would do is look at base part numbers, mostly the block. The rest looks ok.

In reply to alfadriver:

My plan was to get a longblock from a yard and rebuild that while keeping the car driveable in the meantime, I really don't want to have the car engineless for very long and this would afford me some time to get an engine done without rushing.

From what I can tell the SN95 GT 5.0 is basically a 1993 5.0 with a slightly different intake/EGR setup (seems functionally the same but parts don't swap between, aftermarket intake elbow seems to allow cross off Explorer intake & existing EGR if needed) complete with an air pump and EGR and a distributor.

The Explorer brings a better flowing intake vs. the SN95 GT part (it seems to be an equal to the 1995 Cobra 5.0 intake in terms of flow), the EDIS bits, and somewhat better iron heads. My plan was to sell the heads for a slight offset in project costs and get some aftermarket aluminum jobs, keep the Explorer intake, and replace the pistons.

My hope was that an emissions tech would see that the block was different based on the casting number and cross that to an Explorer and at that point I would be exempted from the EGR & air pump requirement. This is all being planned in case I goto a state where they do check these things and do open the hood and I have to explain things; I'd rather have a plan figured out first instead of just hoping for the best and not planning from the beginning. And since I can't build this per my own state's (lack) of rules, it's a confusing thing to try and plan for.

agg... glad I never even had to think about that kind of stuff with my s10 swap.... would make my head spin

Sorry, I only had a few seconds to type out that previous reply. The engine swap is still CA illegal. BUT! 96 and early 97's with the 5.0 have non-P GT40 heads on them. Now if you think a little bit farther, those year Exploders look like the same basic longblock as the 94-95 Cobras.... So, swap out the cam, put your dizzy in it, swap over your front dress and oil pan, and don't worry about smog. The basic block number should still be an E7TE prefix. Heads have the F3TE prefix.... Or you could just rebuild what you already have.

In reply to Ranger50:

How can I not worry about smog when the stock motor has an air pump and EGR rig hanging off the passenger side of the engine? Last Ford car to carry the Windsor 5.0 is the smoggy thing already in my SN95.

The hope was to find a 50 state legal path to not carrying that junk around and it seems like that's not doable. There's always the phony methods like putting the ball bearing in the EGR vac line and probably something in the same line of thinking that I could do with the air pump but that just seems silly. And I'd really like to get an EDIS rig and MS control going so the dizzy swap isn't a big turn on either.

In Colorado you need to bring over all the relevant emissions gear from the later model car. This impacted me on my LS1 swap into my Porsche 951 as I had to bring over the smog pump from the camaro, etc, etc.

you'd be legal in NC... smog laws only apply to '96 and newer, and then only in select counties...the inspector wouldn't know about the motor swap ( unless you just had to tell him )

Yeah, what you are saying isn't going to be legal. In California it would be illegal since it's a truck engine, and even other than that you would have to have functional obd2 with no fault codes. Either swap the explorer engine in and keep the stock emissions stuff, or look for a different engine to swap. Megasquirt could be argued to be against federal emissions laws on any 1966+ car, it really depends on the state laws whether anyone will notice.