The only emission difference on the 5.9 Cummins Ram starting in 2004 was the addition of the catalytic converter. The 2003 exhaust has nothing but a muffler in it. Of course, the cat converter issue is easy to remedy.
Rumor has it within a few years, the tri-county area around Charleston may have federal mandated emission checks due to diminishing air quality standards in recent years. The inspections will start off with a visual inspection to determine if all factory equiped emission devices are still on the vehicle. They do consider the production year of the vehicle for determining what devices were factory installed. After that, the actual tailpipe sniff is done. Diesels are only checked for opacity, not all the other gasses that a gasoline vehicle is tested for. So if you have a hot tune in your diesel (i.e. smokey), remove it and go back to stock programming to pass the test.
In case you do decide to remove your catalytic converter restriction, consider hogging out the guts in your converter and putting the empty housing back on. This way, the truck will pass the visual test for all required emission equipment still being in place. They will not even do the tailpipe sniff if the visual inspection does not pass.
As far as gas engines are concerned, you can still pass the tailpipe sniff with a clean tune even if your cats are hogged out. Gas engines have to pass the visual test first, too. If you don't happen to pass on the first attempt, then try some of the gasoline additives that are advertised to clean up emissions for the pupose of passing emission tests. Rumor has it that some alcohol in with your gas can clean up the sniff sample, too.
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