California Smog Check Cracking Down On Third Party Software tunes

July 25, 2021 Off By Mike Vietro

Image courtesy of Corvette Forum

We have heard that this was coming, but now according to the Frequently Asked Questions section of the California Smog Check website, “Beginning July 19, 2021, vehicles with software not provided by the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) or approved through a California Air Resources Board (CARB) Executive Order (EO) will fail Smog Check. Before your vehicle will pass a Smog Check, you must have the vehicle’s software restored to the OEM or EO approved software version. Once the software is restored, have your vehicle reinspected by a licensed Smog Check station. Note that vehicles initially directed to a STAR or Referee station must return to the same station type to complete the inspection process.”

The California Air Resource Board (CARB) hopes to reduce vehicle emissions by doing away with vehicle engine tunes. By changing the engine computer programming people can get cheap horsepower increases on modern-day cars with turbochargers without having to make any parts changes or physical modifications to the engine components themselves, just by increasing boost pressure and changing the air/fuel mixture.

The days of being able to do cheap reprogramming of the engine computer is coming to an end even without this new test. As cars become more computers on wheels, manufacturers have begun locking down access to these systems to prevent hacking. The C8 and other General Motors cars have already begun using encrypted engine control units and locked out tuners. This lockout is one of the reasons tuners are having a very hard time making performance enhancements to the now two-year-old C8.

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