Triumph Repair: 79 spitfire california emissions, california emissions, egr valve

Question
I am just getting the car running for the first time since I got it. There appears to be very little left of the emissions equipment. No EGR, no anti run on valve no canisters, no air distribution manifold, no air pump. It was a California car and to be honest I am not sure what it originally had installed. The manuals are brutal. Most of the removals have been done well, nice capping metal plugs ect. and you would not know they were missing. The lines that still exist from the carb and fuel vent (soft lines) are just chopped and plugged. So where too from here. How to make it run well.


Answer
Hi Dean,
It sounds like you are starting from scratch. You first need to check to see what your Calif emissions requirements are so you know what and how far you need to go to get it legal. Some emission components were a requirement for the factory to sell the car here and each state seemed to have an option to only require certain items. For example here in TN they check to see that the CAT is still on the car and it has to meet CO and HC standards and lately they check the sealing of the gas caps. They don't even look under the hood to see if it had an AIR pump or an EGR valve.

So, first get the requirements and then after you have the required components, you can work on making it run as best as you can. The Spitfire had several Calif. emission details that other states didn't because your emission laws were more strict.

If you are wanting to put the car back original, I have some of the details for your Calif regulations.

Contrary to what most people think most emission control components don't lower power of the car after early to mid 70s.

Let me know how far you want to go with this and what are the Calif requirements for a 79 car?

Howard