I had initially bought my 99 Accord 4CYL in california (ULEV), I live in Washington state now. From what I understand I have all this California emission equipment sucking up a bit of the engine power. Is there anything I can do to get rid the extra emissions stuff that I dont need here?

 

i dont think it would be worth removing all of it... it doesnt use much power. maybe few hp

 

would it be better if I get a complete aftermarket exhaust headers, high flow cat & cat back? if so what kind of gains are we looking at? and what brand/type do you recommend?

 

the only difference between the lev and ulev engines is about 2hp and 3# of torgue. And most of it is because of the ecu programming. I don't think that there is anything actually different with the exhausts.

For instance, in my car (auto) it starts off in second gear if you dont press down on the gas too hard, to save emissions. Its all in the ecu.

 

yep it's the ecu. maybe get a non-ulev ecu, but it's still probably not worth it.

 

Ok then maybe you guyz can recommend some performance upgrades that can give me a bit more power up on the higher end, for example getting to higher speeds faster? And also are you guyz really sure that there arent more differences between ULEV and LEV cars because I have a cousin that has the non-cali emission car and it always feels like it has more power. Mine for some reason sometimes feels like its choking or something, for example ever since its been getting warm/hot tempratures around here when driving home in the afternoon it feels like I have 10 people in the car, regardless of how much fuel is in the tank w/o A/C etc. I dont know I was just hoping I could do something so that I could get a bit more higher end power for speed or passing.

 

reset your ecu, and see how it runs. I always reset mine at the beginning of summer and winter. it always seems to run a bit better afterwards

 

what if you move from out of state, will a LEV accord pass emmisions in Cali? I just wondering cause I was thinking of moving out there in a year or two. Would a highflow cat affect Cali emmisions as well?

 

Acutally on the 6th gen, the header is different with the F23A4 and F23A1. The F23A4 header has a smaller down pipe and the F23A4 cat is different. The O2 sensors on the F23A4 is different where the one on the header is a Air/Fuel sensor where the one on the cat is an O2 sensor. Everything else like the bore and stroke, the cam lobes and the other mechanical stuff is the same. The crucial difference is the ecu and thats the difference between OBD2 and OBD2.2.