I would be curious to see what would actually happen at an inspection station when you pulling in the jeep which clearly was never offered with a V8. How in depth would the inspector look into it before plugging into the OBD2 port and reading the correct Jeep VIN and no CEL light or monitors on.
I'd love to drag that thing down to my emissions station (the local car wash) and have them run it. The kids that work there don't usually do anything other than tell me how much they love the current vehicle being tested (well, no one ever praised the Tundra).
I spoke with Cobb County Tag and they said the only way to exempt the emissions for this vehicle was to get a waiver from the Clean Air people...So, I tried to actually reach one of them...they have the automated phone system setup such that you can't reach a real person!
My Jeep has the CEL lit...I think on the 98 you can reset it and go immediately and it will pass.
If I go see this thing, I'll take my code reader and see what it spits out of the OBDII.