What Are You Doing To/With Your Car Today?

I tore into my 82 Mazda B2000 trying to determine whey its a "gross polluter" per CA smog when it passed with flying colors 2 years and I only gave it a valve job in between. Turns out my vacuum advance had a pinhole (I think I got that fixed) and the EGR system was plugged beyond comprehension. There is a beefy tube that connects the exhaust manifold to the EGR valve, and that turned out to be clean, as its about 3/4 ID. The EGR was slighly coked but it looked like it still passed some smoke. Cleaned it anyway but it was nowhere coked beyond the small pintle valve opening at full vacuum. Then I took the smaller tube from the EGR to the intake and examined it. Bingo: That thing had 2 inches of solid charcoal inside it at the bend that a coat hanger and 30 minutes of soaking in Easy-off finally punched through. Then I looked at the passage to the intake where it bolts to, there was a 1/2" plug of coal on there too! No wonder the NOx was high and the mix was rich, there was absolutely no EGR dilution in the chambers. I feel alot more confident now when I go to get it tested again. I cant believe all that built up in 2 years? I failed in my SC400 and cleaned the EGR per the guy and I barely passed NOx with a completey clean EGR, and I chipped out an equal amount of crap just from the EGR fitting on that motor, the ~2in square passage was down to about a 4X4mm hole on that fitting. amazing.....