Model years 75' and older in California are exempt from BIANNUAL SMOG TESTING only, you are still required to have your original smog equipment in place on all vehicles no matter what model year. This topic comes up every month at the Datsun board I frequent www.zcar.com My "thermal reactor" has actually already been replaced by an aftermarket cat (that still heats up as much or more than the reactor) and so I would fail the visual portion of any smog test regardless unless I were to source a new thermal reactor.

This is great news for my 75' 280C...

Bad news for my 76' BMW 2002...

and Ron, you can e-mail me or PM me if you have a standard exhaust manifold for the M110. I've looked at quite a few stock exhaust manifolds used on the M110 engine throughout it's use and most of them look nearly identical. What I'm looking for is the 2 separate manifolds that are 3 into 1, and then the 2 manifolds join to one pipe near the passenger side footwell. Let me know if you have anything like that that would work for me, I would love to finally finish this exhaust ordeal and get back to fine tuning the engine.

Your post reminds me of the only thing I didn't like about my 75 Mercedes 280. Mine had CA smog controls too. I think the furthest I ever went without problems related to carburetion and smog controls, or vacume lines, was about 5k miles. I really loved that car though, otherwise. IIRC it was 8 yrs old with 17k original miles, and I paid $13,500 for it. I still get emotional when I see pictures of it. you litterally could not tell it from a new car. My first Mercedes.

I've often wondered if taking a FI system from a newer car wouldn't solve the driveability issues. Personally, although I'm a generally law abiding person, in the case of the particular setup, I'd be willing to "tamper". When they have a lumpy idle and hesitate they don't run very clean either. My usual solution was to accelerate hard, most of the time. Once up to speed, it wasn't so bad.

I wish you luck. I was only 20 at the time, and quite naive and I fell like I got taken advantage of by my local Mercedes dealer trying to keeep that car running corectly. I've only had diesel Mercedes since then.

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1979 240D, 4spd manual, Power Sunroof, manual windows, 147k miles, Pastel gray/Black MB Tex.
1991 300D 2.5 - Smokes like it's on Crack!

hahaha Brandon, you're talking to a 20 year old with the same car and similar problems that you experienced! I have no moral quarrel (that's fun to say!) with removing my inefficient and outdated smog equipment in order to make the car run better, and in my case see a substantial improvement in MPG.

That being said, I can see myself removing the air pump, aftermarket cat, and EGR system all together in my case.