The smog laws have changed in California. I used to have go to a test only station, which to me meant a handful of money every time I had to have the smog measured, making work potentially expensive and time consuming. Now it's called "Star", which one aspect of the change is the doing away of the test only requirement. Having done everything reasonable I could in my garage I was going to take a chance and just go ahead and change the cat but I have to have somebody else do that. I found a couple of places to do that, and they all love to talk and some were Star stations. I found one place that was on the way home and open late that said they would hook it up to a smog machine and check it for free. They could also replace the cat and officially test it. I went by there tonight and got some good info. After playing with the car for a while the cat did light off and get decent cat numbers. He also checked the EGR valve and found it was clogged, which is something I could have and should have done myself but dropped the ball. He also mentioned he thought the intake valves ware carboned up and should be de-carbonized. Like I said they like to talk and he showed me what he used: Seafoam. I told him I have that at home I use on my motorcycle (followed by talk about motorcycles.) He explained what to do and how to do it so now I have something to do this weekend. I’ll go back there next week and try it again.