Checked on Honda-Tech and this forum, but all of the posts are old. Is it still possible to BAR Cert a JDM Motor (B16) in Cali?
I guess I will have to call to get an answer.
It ‘should’ be. But yes, call the ref and find out. Taking someones online word is not the smartest thing when it comes to this situation.
Yes it is as my local Honda tuning shop does em…
I am not necessarily going by someones word, just their experience with attempting to BAR their car with a JDM motor. The emission laws change every year.
Hence me saying, call the ref. Much more easy than waiting for someones off-handed reply that may or may not be correct.
hey let us know what the ref says. I would love to know finally what the “official” word is on swapping a b16 as well.
I tried calling the ref people before and could not get through. You can only make appointments and talk to them there in person…but than again try it…You might get through…
Also I’m going to be doing this soon and i will post it up…Oh yeah. How bout a JDM b18c gsr. I met someone who had a dc2 gsr and he said he blew his motor and got a JDM version and swap it over…all he did was replace some stuff like crank angle sensor or something like that and it’s all legit to swap refable…But than again. Yeah. Better for one of us to experience it or someone who has on here recently…
As long as the motor is out of a newer car, and all of the proper emission stuff is hooked up and functioning properly, it ‘should’ be able to be BAR’d.
So whomever you met that had a DC2 GSR with a JDM motor, as you said, had replaced emission/engine control components to be up to US emission standards.
Like if anyone remembers DA9leo (I think) and his DB2… it had a Type-R motor. Meaning he had to convert to OBD2 to keep the emission standards of the US-equivelent vehicle that motor came in. Meaning crank-angle sensors, secondary O2 sensor, all EVAP related stuff, etc etc…
If going with a JDM motor, you need to strip all of the emission related stuff and swap in US-Spec stuff.
B20’s can’t be legally swapped in CA because its a ‘light truck’ motor and not a ‘car’ motor…
Most all of this info is out there if you search.
In regards to the b16 swap, I remember an article concerning the swap:
http://www.importtuner.com/newsstand/impp_0608_ca_engine_swap_guidelines/index.html
It did not mention the year of the engine but the ref in the article stated that 66% of the jdm b16 swaps do not pass due to high N0x levels supposedly from .2 bump of compression. USDM is 10.2 while the jdm swap is 10.4. Looking over the hmotors website the only b16a that is the same to usdm specs is the 88-91 B16A SiR.
If you use US-spec emissions related components, you should be able to get a JDM motor to pass.
But if its in poor condition (rings, etc) it probably won’t. And as the article stated… carbon build-up, raising compression, could make it fail as well.
From my own personal experience a good JDM B16 (not a tired one that has been abused), with the correct cat converter and smog devices, will pass California smog sniffer test. Now will a ref bar it? I can’t answer that. Here is my story. 90 DA with almost 200,000 mile B18A1 and original Cat initially failed smog at a test only center. So bad they labeled me a gross polluter.
I picked up a clean JDM B16 on craigslists. I don’t know much about it except that it looked clean and it is OBD2 since I had to change the fuel injectors to OBD1’s (I did an OBD1 swap at the same time). So I’m guessing SIR II. I took it for a pretest with the original tired old cat from 1990. It barely failed. I went and got a local muffler shop to install a new cat and took it for a retest. It passed with flying colors. The combination of the JDM (OBD2) B16 and the new cat put out barely any emissions. It’s been one of cleanest cars I’ve ever smogged.
My recommendation, if you go JDM B16, is to take it to a local smog shop and pay for a pretest. From what I’ve heard, the Ref will do the same sniffer test as the local smog shop. If you don’t pass the local smog shop pretest, you won’t pass with the ref.
Ng