stupid question time...
I'm from europe and I wonder if you guys at the United States have an institution or laws who tell you what and how much you are allowed to change on your car. Here in Germany (and in Greece) every modification is regulated by law, we have an institution who proves how low, how loud, how fast, how whatever you have tuned on your ride and eventually forbids the use until it's within the law specifications again. I'm for some months now a subscriber of this magazine and I love especially the Reader's Rides section on this site because there are so many incredible rides (jdm is sth rare where i come from) but I'm asking myself every time if those rides would be legal here in europe.

sorry for my poor english and thanks in advance for your assistance  

Welcome to the site.

Yes, America has laws that restrict certain modifications for race track use only. To make matters more complex, each state has different rules that apply to what you can and can't do to road cars.

California among others has the most stringent rules. Most cars need to meet very strict emissions standards. Tint laws vary from state to state. in most states, exhausts and light modifications are tolerated, although as stated before, California has very strict laws that prohibit what can be done to their vehicles. Their governing body is known as CARB or the Calfornia Air Resources Board. Their job is to ensure that cars pollute as little as possible. We also have many state laws in California which prohibit how much ground clearance cars have as well as what types of lighting can be used on public roads.  

DYonehara is correct. Also, with more and more illegal street races that keep hitting the news due to the increasing amount of accidents that result from them, we may continue to see more and more states adapting the laws to make it harder to enjoy tuning. Eventually, all this illegal street racing will force laws upon us that will restrict these types of modifications for race cars only. That would be a bummer. Street racing is fun, but there are too many variables that make it that much more dangerous to do on the street. It's the younger crowd that need to control their testosterone levels and do it on the tracks and courses available. Every state has tracks, to some degree, and if not, those states should open their eyes to the revenue potentials of a track. I think that there should be a lot more tracks, if there aren't already.  

thanks for that details info. I supposed that there would be laws since every country has laws how "extreme" you are allowed to modify your car but I didn't know that it is that different in each state. I suppose California has the most strict rules with emission because of the urban centers like LA or so which are vulnerable against pollution. Standardized rules would not be easy for the USA because it's a big country and maybe every state has a different focus. Nevertheless I'm very jealous of you americans since the rides I see on this site at 70% would not be street legal here in Germany so you enjoy it much more than we do

Thank you very much for this info.  

Yes the same here. Street racing is fun but if you want a challenge I would do it on a track. We also have tracks here and it's much safer than on the street. I'm not building my car and putting money in it to challenge people at the next traffic light and maybe having an accident. All that work would be destroyed for only 5 seconds of fun?
An idea like you said is building more race tracks (under prof. control) to let people race instead of making it harder to tune with those laws.

I think the idea of tuning is not to build a car which is the fastest and so on but to build a car that you are proud of and that looks different than others. So I also think most tuners don't risk their car on the next illegal street race but enjoy it cruisin through the streets and to know that you have the potential power under the hood. You want to test your power? go to the race track.
(I did not often think so but sadly I lost too much friends on car accidents so I changed my opinion about this)
Thanks again for your infos  

I lost friends in the same way. I understand your thinking. I just wish that more people thought that way. I saw a lot of idiots in Puerto Rico who could use this same mind set. There is one official track in there and a lot of people use it, but not nearly enough to curb the bad habbits of the idiots that still do it on the streets. And they do it with very little space, too. A lot of the roads there are severely narrow! The highways are wide but patrolled heavily by the police... you get the idea. I just don't get it. Stupid, if you ask me!