Diesel swap legalities

I love my tundra (and of course my Tacoma) and I planned on keeping it for as long as it would last and eventually take the motor out and do a diesel swap, but now I'm thinking that it might be so hard to get it legal that it's not even worth it. Anyone know anything about this? I plan on moving back to California when I do finally do it

 

Almost every state has it's vehicle rules online nowadays. Have you looked at Cali's?

Always better to look at the actual documentation than just 'he said' stuff.

 

I did, and from what I read it seems like if your chassis is before 76 it's ok, and if it's newer than that then you need a donor truck that is newer than your truck and it has to have passed emissions before and after

 

I think you read it right.

 

Just wanted to see if anyone had any experience with it

 

Does Cali do physical tailpipe sniffing or just verify there are no OBD2 fault codes after a drive cycle?

 

If I remember they do the tailpipe as well. Not sure on diesels though

 

From my past experience living in commie-fornia the general rule is when doing a motor swap into any vehicle, the engine must be able to pass smog and the engine must be the same year or newer than the vehicle chassis (in my case 2003 can have an LS2 from 03+). The only way around that is to register your vehicle in a smog exempt area and get the new tags, then you will be able to put whatever you want into your vehicle. The only problem with that is you will have to be close to the county within vehicle registration or they will cite the vehicle owner and property owner and potentially cause an expensive fine.

So basically if you live in a smog exempt area or know someone great, but those are far and few between and it's generally not worth it. Commie for N I A and smog nazi's.

 

I’ve known people who own vehicles that weren’t smogable in California, they were able to get around it by registering the vehicle in a non smog county. If you’re in the Bay Area, so cal or any more populated you’re going to have to deal with smog. If you have a property in eureka that you can use as the residency and get it registered there and live wherever you will be in California that works. A friend had a 2005 f250 with a 5.9 common rail+Allison 1000, it had all of the smog equipment, but he had it registered in a non smog county so no problems.

 

Sorry, former Cali resident, Cali does a full prostate exam for emissions testing, a family members vehicle (ford diesel) wouldn't pass the sniff test because the previous owner had installed a 5" turbo back and done catalytic converter delete.

 

This thread got resurrected after two years... did the OP ever pursue the swap?