Engineer certification for modified vehicles is an interesting subject. It's not straight forward.
VASS stands for Vehicle Assessment Signatory Scheme. VicRoads has a list of engineers they approve of, through a link on this webpage
Vehicle modification VASS Approval Certificate. CLICK for pdf download >>>
VicRoads VASS signatories
You can pick from the list, contact them yourself.
I'm interested in building a working relationship with my engineer. I'm keen to do some other stuff. So I made sure to spend some time with him to understand his position, how it all works, and to hopefully earn his trust that I'll do the right thing by him.
He's seen it all. As you can imagine. He's also got a massive cache of auto mod info in his head.
A good analogy, that my engineer liked that's familiar with me, and agreed with, was this;
A VASS signatory is like a construction supervisor. A good supervisor is trusted to be a fair judge on what is sound building practice. You have to make sure that 'ALL' the work gets done, to at the very least, industry approved standards.
At the same time he is the meat in the sandwhich between the tradies, and the Developer/Contractor/Builder/Project Manager.
On one hand you got developers that want the job to be of the highest standard. On the other hand you have tradies that have quoted the work and want to get done asap, and outta there, and paid as much as possible.
The kicker is, what one supervisor would accept as quite acceptable workmanship, a different supervisor will know is shit.
VASS signatories are the meat in the sanga too. Going between people modifying their vehicles on one hand, and VicRoads on the other. People constantly want to take the shortest, easiest route. One VASS signatory will approve something another sigantory won't. It is a gray area.
The VASS recommended engineers are not employed by VicRoads, they are independant contractors. My engineer spends a lot of his time overseas consulting as an automotive engineer. This is just one avenue of work for him.
It's important to do the right thing by you particular engineer. Just like it is important to do the right thing by a building supervisor. So I know exactly where he is at.
It's guaranteed that there will be different opinions and different ways VASS engineers will enterpret the occassional reg. None of them may be wrong, or right, at some points.
It's a bit like this:
Recently I had to get a Vic Road Worthy Certificate for the GC my missus bought from interstate.
The list my very local VACC (RWC checker) mechanic gave me was pretty short, and easy. I am not a road worthy official at all, but I knew a few things he missed, or at least could have been enterpreted as failing.
He fitted us in his very busy diary, it was chockers. It took some arm twisting.
But, and it's a big but, he put removing the side window tint completely. The side window tint was 24% light transmitting. I've been here before, a few times. I suggested I'd take the driver's and front passenger tint off and leave the tint on from the B Pillars back. He wouldn't accept it, becaue he said the rules changed recently. I knew different but let it slide, went home started on the rest of the list.
I looked it up, and there is actually a recent addendum to the regs about tint, saying you can have down to 30% light transmitting tint on the side windows from the B-Pillar forward. So they did have to come off, because they were 24%, too dark, and I was ok with that because I actually hate side tint for driver and front passenger.
Any side window from B-Pillar back can be down to 20% light transmitting, so by the regs we could keep those tinted the way they were.
My missus wanted me to go correct him. She really really likes dark side tint, it's her car. I consulted an old buddy of the mechanics, and two other mechanics and my engineer. They all said just do what he wants, he fitted you in his tight schedule. He is indeed wrong, but FFS don't ruffle his feathers. That was my thought all along. Just take it all off, get it rego and move on.
My missus still insisted I go show him before taking it off. I told her, okay you F'n go show him this print out of the regs. If he then says we can jam it, YOU find another VACC tester, and YOU f'n fix anything that is wrong that will f'n take a lot more to fix than bloody tint.
Tint is off. I am happy, mechanic is happy. Missus has new massive light bar and she's happy too
TL;DR The whole engineer thing is a gray area. What one engineer will certify, another may not. Don't rock the boat if you are generally on a good thing. Give and take here and there.