Need legal advice..., For driving an "antique" vehicle Options

[ninefourteener]

I've brought up this topic before... going back nearly a year. I'll see if I can make a long story short:

1. A year ago, 914 gets tagged to be emission tested.
2. Car won't pass
3. Adusted carbs, lowered idle, poured in dry gas, nothing.
4. Car failes emissions miserably 3 times
** BTW, my car runs FANTASTIC
5. I file for an "extension" on the emissions requirement
6. Never hear back, assume everything's ok
7. Car registration expired 31 May
8. Go in today to get new registration sticker
9. Find out car's tags have been suspended since last June...... oops (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/biggrin.gif)
10. Give up, and call the Illinois EPA to find out how to register the car as an antique.

Ok, so I'm going to register it as an antique...... Which means that "technically" I'm not supposed to drive it anywhere other than car shows, races, events, etc...... or if I'm performing maintenance or something.

Truth be told... I'm unsure of exactly what the law says.

In addition...... what do I do if I get pulled over, and I'm just out for a Sunday drive or something??

I've heard that it's good to keep a couple quarts of oil in the car, or some tools.... I dunno. How well does that work? W#ill it stand up in court?

[lapuwali]

The full text of all of the relevant laws should be online somewhere. You owe it to yourself to find and read the law.

I presume you live on the IL side of the river if you're looking into IL law, not MO law. In MO, not everyplace has the same requirements. When I lived in St. Louis (in STL county), I had to submit to the annual safety and emissions test (this was up to 1994). My father, who lives on the opposite side of the state in Greene County, doesn't have ANY annual inspection of any kind. If I still lived in MO, I'd probably have all of my cars registered at by dad's address, not mine. IL may be similar.

That said, passing emissions shouldn't be all that difficult unless you have a '75 (or '76), even with carbs. What were the actual emissions numbers? I suspect you're actually running fairly rich, even if you say this is "fantastic". The Federal limit for '74 was on the order of 400ppm HC and 3.0% CO, which is incredibly high, and certainly indicates a very rich-running engine. For '75, the limits got a good bit tighter, and passing w/o a catalytic convertor is not as easy, but it's still possible. I know someone in So Cal who managed to get a '75 Alfa to pass the tailpipe test with dual Webers (car originally had mechanical FI), and CA limits are lower than Federal limits. If you took the time to properly calibrate your carbs (using a gas analyzer or a wideband O2 setup), you'd probably pick up some power and better mileage, as well as passing the smog test. If you have a '75 or '76, plumbing in a $150 aftermarket catalytic convertor would make a gigantic difference to your emissions.