I've gotta get inspected in november, and since last year I've done all my mods. The things I'm worried about are:

My red/clears (i think this should be alright, I'm going to try and go on a cloudy day so that they are more visible during the day to the technician.)

My hacked airbox. I don't just have a little hold drilled in it, I removed the whole side. Anyone who has one, has anyone ever said anything to you, like "hey you shouldn't have a hole there. you fail." I do have my original airbox i can slap back in if this is a projected problem.

If anyone has any input and has ever had any problems with these mods allowing them to pass inspections please let me know. (I'm leaning toward MA residents, because they understand about the new tight-*** state laws regarding inspection. It sucks around here.)

 

Make sure you have the correct color light bulb in your tails. Your blinkers should be orange. The clear lense isn't a problem. Clear lenses on your front bumper (if you have them) will fail, you need orange reflectors up front, keep the OEM ones in till after your inspected.

The airbox isn't an issue, make sure your car is in tune so it passes emissions. Run a bottle of Techron through the week before for good luck.

 

I know the laws suck. Sorry i can't help you out I am gonna have the same problems with my car. I have all blue bulbs every where and I have the tinited tail. I hope it goes threw it will be a pisser to remove the tint.

 

I have clear fronts, but all my bulbs are orange (tails and front sidemarkers and blinkers)

Car is in pristine running condition, only have 64k and just did a nice tuneup; I'm not too worried about emissions (plus I think I had emissions done last year so this year im good to go on that. It's every other year in MA.)

I think I'm going to chance it with the front clears, There's plenty of new cars now that dont come with any orange reflectors in the front and just have orange bulbs in their chrome light housings. If i fail based on that, i can just go home and switch and go back and get it done immediately.

 

Just put the side reflective orange piece back in and you'll be OK.

Not true!
By law you must have orange reflectors up front and red in the rear.
Look closer at those cars, you'll see the orange reflector.

 

i passed with clear corners (because they said DOT on them ) and painted tails. but then again i went to my friend.

your state is aloud to open your hood? funny

 

are you kidding.. a few years ago taxachusetts decided it wanted to rape all its residents into buying newer vehicles... so they implemented some insane inspection requirements.

there's so few old vehicles on the road now, not like I used to see. rust buckets seem to be a thing of the past now.

 

If they are donig a smog test in MA, then they will open up your hood. This is because most smog tests are run above idle. The techs use a clamp meter around one of the spark plug coils to sense rpm of the engine. They might run the engine up to 2000 rpms. In the meantime; they'll be looking for the usual stuff like shiny new exhaust headers that aren't legal.

In California, we now have to do DYNO test for smog. We have to do "light-load" tests spinning the rollers at 25mph. "Light-load" is still a lot harder than "idle-load" to pass.

A lot of the junker cars are failing. Which is fine by me. It is the tiny population of 70's and 80's junkers causing 50% of the smog.

The mechanics doing these smog tests are usually not gullible about mods. They see the engine bays of dozens of cars a day, so they get a feel for something out of the ordinary.

And if you show up with your lowered car with shiny wheels, it makes them more suspicious of your car.

I don't know why MA is so strict on cars, beside the primary motivation to shaft people out of money. MA doesn't have a geographical propensity for pollution issues like Los Angeles. When people build a city completely surrounded by mountains, there is no place for the smog to go.

 

i had my clear bumper lenses on, i just replace my white led bulbs with the amber bulbs that they came with. and i passed inspections

 

How about I just found out yesterday (from my mechanic/friend) that now in PA, if your check engine light is on, you automatically fail inspection - which is fantastic since mine has been on for over a year and a half and been to the dealer a million times (4 actually) and every time it's there, the very next day the stupid check engine light comes back on - talked to my mechanic/friend about just clearing it before taking it for inspection, but he said that now they're supposed to drive the car for 2 hours before they inspect it, so the again stupid light would come back on in that time period - hopefully he'll inspect it for me and "turn a blind eye".....