california smog defeats our engine swap

[joe at analogsix.com (Joe)]

Well today my brother took his car to the smog ref to try and get it
certified.  It's an RV motor out of a '92 GTI using CIS-E.  He was confident
that the guy would accept it, but it was a no go.  I was pretty sure that it
would need to be a complete swap (harness and all from donor).

If it was an RD block he would have been fine because then we could have
called it a complete swap from an 86-88 GTI/GLI.  However, it's an RV.  It's
sad because it's pretty much the same engine from what I can tell.

They were giving him crap about the electronic ignition, saying it should
have had a vacuum advance distributor.  But wouldn't any high compression
motor be equipped with a knock sensor and consequently an electronic advance
distributor?

In any case, we have the car running with CIS-E so it's just a matter of
finding an engine that will be legal in it.  We do have a complete PL laying
around, but who knows what that would amount to in terms of not using the
power steering pump, exhaust, etc.  This really sucks because it took way
too long to get this thing going.

Joe