Failed Emissions, what does it mean?

[sirocco@telocity.com (Randy B)]

If you are going to fab a fake cat to only use once (for smog day) why not 
use a real cat???
I have a high flow cat that sits on the shelf with only about 2 days worth 
of use (have had it for...10+yrs) and it is still like new.
This way when I get a smog (CA) cert I know it will pass with a good cat 
without any problems.
I thought people put hollowed out cats on cars when they didn't want to 
remove it at all.
In fact a good friend of Craig and I uses a hollowed out cat (with a pipe 
welded inside) every day on the car except smog day at which time he swaps 
out the hollowed out unit for a good unit and swaps back after smogging.
Enlighten me here....what am I missing???

Randy
(smog legal 1 day out of every 2 yrs.)

At 02:55 AM 03/30/2002 -0500, brett cooke wrote:
>actually thats the way we do it up here. when i first went catless on my 
>'87 (my she rip), we took the cat that i had taken off, hollowed it out, 
>and then cut it in half. a little streching and some discretely placed 
>brackets and we have a fake cat that bolts on and off in seconds. well, 
>okay, in takes longer then seconds to jack up the car but you get the 
>drift. now we keep it on a shelf here at the shop and pass it around to 
>whomever has to take the test next.
>  hit
>
>
>> > I dont have a cat, but dont think thats wy I failed, but now that they saw
>> > that there isn't one i have to put one in, oh well.
>> >
>>I just had a thought.  For those of you running downpipes and headers, 
>>anybody ever thought of constructing a fake cat?  Maybe cut the old one 
>>off of the old pipe or just getting one from the scrap yard.  gut it out, 
>>make a few cuts, and then attach it over the downpipe/header about where 
>>a cat would go.  You could take this fake cat "shell" on/off when 
>>emission time came.
>>
>>This is all assuming that the guy doing the visual isn't very thorough or 
>>too attentive, and that you can actually pass without a real cat.
>>
>>What do you all think of this idea.  Am i crazy, could it work?  I'll 
>>eventually go to the TT downpipe w/o cat and may need to look into 
>>something like this...
>>--
>>Doug C.
>>'88 16v
>>Raleigh, NC