CA legal LSx into E36 possible?

[BlackbirdFabwrx]

Question for those who have already done or actively going through the LS into E36 swap, can the OEM exh manifolds and cats be used in the swap?

The car-unfriendly state of CA requires that all of the donor's original emissions equipment will be installed unmodified (!) on the new vehicle in addition to the sniffer.
From all the reading that and research that I've been doing on the swap it seems that most everything else related to the donor vehicle's emissions system can be made to work on the E36, though in some cases a good bit of fabrication will be required.
Fabrication doesn't scare me one bit as long as the items in question can physically be made to fit, i.e. driver side cat doesn't need to go where the pedals are etc..

TIA,

Moti

[Zander]

This has been discussed before and it is not. You would never be able to get carb approved headers to fit.
However one way around it is to register the car in another state. Thats what I did with mine and I never had a problem while I lived in washington.

In the end though fuck california. I still hope and pray that LA will sink into the ocean.

[BlackbirdFabwrx]

I ran a search before and only found a couple of threads with CA specific info, most of which I've seen before in other forums and swap related resources.

I guess I should re-focus my questions into what needs to be notched / cut / modified / relocated to make the OEM headers and cats fit in the E36 chassis?
Has anyone tried to stub the engine/trans in the car with OEM manifolds to see what hits?

I realize the steering shaft needs to be modified and that the ABS unit needs to move out of the way (as it seems with almost every other LS-->E36 swap), that's fine.
What's else is in the way of the OEM manifolds and cats?

Thanks again,

Moti

[rao]

You need to start with a different chassis to make OEM manifolds fit into an e36.

If it could be done, someone would have done it a while ago.

[monger]

I can show you an example of how to pull it off with some block hugger headers, but are there any carb certified block hugger headers?

[BlackbirdFabwrx]

I'll need to double check it, but I think Edelbrock makes a CARB legal setup for the 04-06 Pontiac GTO.

Moti

[Tongboy]

unless you PAID one of the e36 swap headers guys the CARB certification money (aka pay them to get their header certed) it isn't going to happen anytime soon.

e39/e34 and plenty of other cars that comes with optional v8's from the factory can take an lsx swap with stock headers which is the big part of the emissions components as far as fitment.