California smog police are waiting...?

[ed armstrong]

Hi gang,

This post is for primarily California listers but
others feel free to chime in.

As I am closing in on the completion of my turbo swap
in a 1988 90q some issues are concerning me with smog
laws. In my beautiful but increasingly legislated home
state of California there is a law that says one
cannot swap an earlier model year engine into any car
older than about ~1973. That is you cannot take a 1985
engine and swap it into a 1990 model year car. 

There in lies my diliema, as I bought a junkyard 5000
turbo MC engine from a 1987 model year. On the engine
itself is stamped "86" on the lower right
(non-manifold side) with  what looks like a production
serial number stamped near the the head (but on the
block). 

Does anyone have any experience as to how strict these
smog police are when they inspect an engine
conversion. Do they look at the stamped year date and
production numbers to see which model car the engine
was derived from ?? Does it make any difference to
them that the MC-1 engine was the same for the
1986-1989.5 production run ?? I'm actually toying with
the idea of changing some of the numbers to "make" it
an 1988 or 1989 engine. Doesn't look like its hard to
do with some subtle grinding and renumbering.

Alternatively, all the smog equipment like O2 sensor
and cat converter will be retained, so it may pass the
so-called visual part of the bi-annual smog inpection
if I get some bozo inspector. It will certainly pass
the actual smog test of pollutant measurements, I have
not doubt about that.

My next smog check is in 20 months so I have some
time. But I'd like to address some these issues now.
Any thoughts on this ??

 -ed

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