I'm still not being clear, I'm afraid. It's not a question of how stringent the emissions specifications are. The problem is CARB's reliance on equipment checks rather than tailpipe emissions checks. ryandrake's car might well be cleaner than a perfectly-stock vehicle, but if each and every component doesn't have a CARB certification number stamped on it, it's illegal.

You could argue that equipment checks are in place to prevent the very situation described in this article, where people might install shady aftermarket hardware to game emissions tests, but as we've seen, the aftermarket is not where the problem actually lies.

I'm all for keeping the air clean, but that's obviously not the motivation behind CARB's policy of failing cars with clean-blowing after-market parts.