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I agree with Old Mech; if you're already averaging over 60mpg per tank with the gasoline engine, I doubt you'll save anything switching to diesel... even if you could find free fuel. Best bet may be to buy a diesel engine with a car around it already.
Diesel swaps into gasoline cars are not unheard of in CA; there are folks on the TDI forum that put them into all kinds of interesting vehicles. It does typically require transplanting not only the engine, but also all the electronics (including the dash), unless you can reprogram the ECU to work without the dash. I don't know the details about registering them, but suspect the engine had to come from a CA compliant vehicle.
I do know that the normal smog test for a Diesel does not involve a sniffer; it is only an underhood visual check, a CEL check, and a "smoke test" (which is basically revving the engine and seeing if the exhaust is opaque).
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