At least you can do a swap like that in NY, out here in Cali you would have a hell of a time registering it with the strict smog laws. My boss was able to do a V-8 swap on his 99 Dakota only because that year and model came factory with a V-8. He had to order a PCM and wiring harness from Canada because his truck was a 5 speed and 99% of the Dakota'* with a V-8 were equipped with an auto trans. Too bad Chevy never made one factory.

I'm fortunate enough to have never lived in an emissions check area, mostly in E. Wa. state (sparsely populated) and now in the lowcountry of SC (ocean breezes disperse any smog). Counting my blessings that I've never had to deal with that hassle.

2004 Bonne SLE
1971 Chevelle SS

its not as bad as some states, especially for normal cars. if you can make the monitors read as if they are happy and program the vin to be the vin of the car, its going to pass emissions. now down in NYC, they have the full sniffer and everything. and pre 95 is very liberal. alot of the stations dont even look under the vehicle. i had no cats and dual exhaust on my 89 c1500 and never had a problem inspecting it

LOL. What monitors? All of mine except 1 is N/A for some reason. I'm not complaining. In NY, all but 1 have to be ready. And if the rest are N/A, then I'm golden. HAAHAHHAHA.

OMG it was a bit of a culture shock when I moved to California to find out bad they are about emissions. My 91 K-1500 failed smog twice first time because the flow master cat I had on it didn't have the proper CARB number on it. And the second time they failed me is because I converted my 1 wire O2 sensor to a 3 wire because it wasn't OE. Witch is dumb because a 3 wire set up puts it into closed loop faster giving it better fuel economy thus cleaner air! They are natzi'* about emissions here!

As of 2 years ago they are even picking on the diesel owners. If its a 99 or newer you need to go to a smog station. Lots of guys were pissed they threw away their stock exhaust and intake systems.

I took the truck in today to get its annual state safety/emission inspection done. Because the mechanics knew me very well, they were intrigued while going over the entire truck. They even allowed me to be under it answering questions of what I all I had to do to it.

I kinda got nervous when the NYS computer got hooked up to it. But, it passed anyway. If I remember right, 2000+ vehicles, you have to have all but one monitor ready to pass the emissions. All of my monitors except for one, is N/A LOL. The only one that came on ready was my O2 sensors. Don't ask me how this worked out, but there isn't really anything I can change via tuning to make them goto N/A instead of NOT READY or READY.

So, now I'm good for another year. Now, I can get down to real business and start tuning this thing.

yep 99-96 you can have two not ready. my bonnie has had a cel light for evap for like ten years. ive tried to fix it a bunch of times but end up just clearing it then getting it inspected when everything else goes ready.

Technically, this project was never finished. Since the start of it, I had to remove my a/c condenser because the radiator had to move forward which took up that spot.

Again, custom fabrication with a sawzaw, a cutoff tool, and a shoehorn and some old guy supervising me and taking pictures.


Here, I removed the grill which pops out and the headlights which pop out after removing 2 clips.




Removed the bumper



After test fitting, I found that the power steering cooler will no longer bolt to the radiator support frame, and the hood latch bracket will also need trimmed.





Here is the bracket cut.




At this point, the condenser is in and plumbed up. Just doing some mock ups with putting parts back together.




Hard to tell, but I had to cut another hole in the radiator support frame for the condenser lines to go back into the engine bay.




Once everything was back together, off to Autozone to get 3 cans of R134a, then over to Rich'* house because he has a vac pump and I have the manifold gauges.




Right now, pulling a vacuum and having a cold one.

Now that your so good at it when are you going to throw a V8 into the blazer?