83 Lincoln Continental

[MadMan]

Originally Posted by Adam

What I heard bouncing around under the car is an about 1" diameter metal tube which is supposed to connect to the catalytic converters (It has 2 catalytic converters which then feed a single muffler), but is rusted through and bouncing around under there. It leads to a mess of smog hoses on the right side of the engine. I'm not sure what it is or does, but in the Phoenix area all cars newer than 66 need to pass smog, so I need one.

That pipe that feeds the converters is the secondary air injection. Basically, the system pumps fresh air into the exhaust to aide in the catalyzing, usually during cold weather. If the inspectors see that it's broken, they'll fail you. But if they don't check, and the pipes on the converter side are plugged, it's entirely possible it won't affect a tailpipe gas analyzer test.

I don't know much about how inspections work in Phoenix, but I'd wager nobody even has an exhaust gas analyzer anymore, anyway. Likely their inspections (on pre-1996 cars) are visual only - but don't take my word for it.