12/16 experience registering a kit car in CT

[FrankR105]

The CT State DMV considers a kit car/hot rod a “Composite” car, which means it’s made with a combination of standard and non-standard components and is usually built in someone’s garage by non-professionals. So assume they aren’t going to trust anything you do without fully inspecting it.
You can only bring the car to Wethersfield to be inspected. The car must have all four wheels off the ground when you bring it in or they won’t look at it, so you have to use a trailer or a flatbed.

They have a separate inspection building with a separate driveway off to the right side of the main DMV building with lifts and skidplates where they inspect all salvaged cars, school buses, emergency vehicles, etc. They seemed to enjoy looking at a hot rod -- they were all car guys.
The first thing to do is park in the main parking lot (away from the inspection lane, on the left side of the main building) and go inside the main building and pay for the “Composite car inspection.” Get the form on the way in and stand in line. Then you bring everything over to the inspection lane and unload where they tell you to.

They will expect to see:
Certificate of Origin for the kit car (comes from the manufacturer of the kit) and some sort of number or plate or stamp on the chassis or body associating the Cert. with the car.
They’ll also want some sort of paper identifying where each major component of the drivetrain originated, it must show numbers on the engine, trans, and rear axle associated with numbers on these papers. Ideally, they’re looking for VIN numbers of the cars where these things originated to insure against them being stolen (in my case I bought the car partially completed and everything came with it, so I purposely had the Bill of Sale made out showing each component and their ID numbers. They hesitated accepting that, but finally decided they’d let it go, because there was no recourse – I’d bought the thing 8 years earlier).

Expect them to look everything over: top, bottom, inside and outside. There were 3 guys looking at my car. If they see overall good workmanship and thoroughness, they tend to be less critical if it looks like you knew what you were doing, so it’s important to have everything completely finished and not having anything looking temporary. Be sure to properly fasten brake lines, wiring, and exhaust pipes, etc. I took a lot of pictures during construction and printed out a bunch that showed things they couldn’t see, so they would get a warm fuzzy feeling I did a good job.

There is a list of things they check that is available on the DMV website, listed under Composite Vehicles. Download and print everything associated with Composite Vehicles and study them well.
In addition to the normal things like high and low beam headlights, parking lights, taillights, brake lights, horn, mirrors (they’ll look for 3), working wipers, etc., they’ll want to test how well the parking brake works by having you engage it and try to stall the engine (!!!). They’ll have you panic stop on a skid plate that tests how evenly all four wheels’ brakes grab. Not a good thing to do in that small space if you’re not very familiar driving this car, so shake the car down well and get used to its "personality" before you go there and be sure the brakes are balanced well and one end (or one side) doesn’t lock up too much sooner than the other. This gizmo of theirs must also somehow check front end alignment, so make sure it’s better than an approximation.
The absolute best thing this state did is eliminate the requirement they used to have that these cars had to pass the emissions regs that were in place at the time of the year of the engine. Now ALL composite cars don’t have any emissions requirements at all. At least that’s the way it is now. anything can change at any time.

These are the things they nailed me for that I didn’t expect, neccessitating a second trip: Seat belts needed to have a label that shows they comply with DOT regulation FMVSS-209. I had two full racing 5 point harnesses with labels showing certification to SFI/FIA regulations, but that didn’t matter at all to them, even though it was complete overkill. A place in California: “Seatbeltsplus.com” has the OEM-type belts with the labels, reasonable priced.
They wanted some sort of heat wrap insulation on the sidepipes that extends beyond the doors, the idea being no one can get burned by a hot pipe getting in and out of the car. I’d spent $300 on heat shields to do just that, but there was about 4” of the naked pipe that extended past the door, so they had to enforce that rule.
Note #1: as I was leaving after I finally passed, the guy was saying the entire sidepipe was supposed to be covered from the fender back, but I don’t think that was the intent of the rule.
Note #2: ERA Cobra kit cars are built in New Britain and they rent the sidepipe heat shields in case you don’t want to buy them. Either way once you pass the inspection, leave them on or take them off whatever you want.
They wanted some sort of side reflectors on the car to make it visible in the dark, amber in the front and red in the back. They didn’t care what or where. The guy took me off to the side and said to put something temporary on and remove them after the inspection. I used some tiny little bicycle reflectors on the sides of the bumperettes and later left them on because I liked the idea because you can hardly see them in the daylight.

Once you pass the safety inspection, you leave your car there and go back inside the DMV to apply and pay for the assignment of a State of Connecticut VIN Number. You’ll now have the necessary papers to do this, and you have to stand in line again to pay. You cannot pay for this until you pass the inspection. Then once you get the form showing you paid, you go back to the inspection lane and they assign their own VIN number and they apply it to the car. Then you load up and get your stuff out of their way, then go back inside the DMV to finally register the car (standing in line again). You’ll need an insurance certificate that shows this newly assigned VIN number, so you’ll need an accessible insurance agent in order to issue it within this small window of time (the DMV accommodates this issue with a special email address for the insurance co. to send the cert.) Of course, at this point, you can go to any DMV branch to register the thing because you have everything you need. I found the lines inside the Wethersfield branch go really fast because they have a lot of windows, NO complaints about that!

If you get this done in one trip, you did absolutely everything right and should get an award. Hopefully, with this info, and good workmanship and craftsmanship, it’ll increase your chances.
I have to say that the overall experience was almost enjoyable and totally painless, unlike the horror stories of days gone by. The inspectors were knowledgeable and down-to-earth. They all had good senses of humor. While my car was on the lift, one of them made a phone call and all of a sudden there were 20 other guys looking at everything. I started to freak out, saying I'll never pass this thing with all these eyes looking at it and one of them said not to worry, they're just car guys looking at the cool hot rod! When I came back for re-inspection for the things that didn't pass (you get one free, and they only look for the items that were issues and not start over!), I didn't have to unload it off the trailer because they could see if I fixed what was deficient. Of course, everything is subject to change.