they want it to be in stock condition with the cats, the visual inspection will fail you since the cats will be moved even if it has all four of the cats.. (friend lives in cali, he's been through all this before) like said above the only carb legal headers are JBA shorties but that's just a waste
you can add the stock headers from a 94-98 sixxer to your car, ford part so legal and they probably wouldn't even notice during inspection, about the only set of shorties worth messing with since they're cheap