So here's the deal and I apologize if I have posted in the wrong section.

I went to have my 04 G35 Coupe smogged (California) and I passed all of the emissions parts of the smog test, but got an automatic fail because of the check engine light (SES). I got the codes P0011 and P0012 and was told this is probably a camshaft position sensor (a few hundred dollars to fix). I took it in and now they are telling me that I have a torn gasket somewhere behind the timing chain that is causing low oil pressure fed into the camshaft. They also said that this is not causing any damage to the car, just a loss of performance. In order to fix this gasket they quoted me a 15+ hour labor job and about $1,000 in parts - so roughly $2,500.

The car has 116,xxx miles, so I really have a hard time justifying spending that much on it, when A) it is not causing damage and B) I actually passed the smog portion. I know how to reset the CEL via the pedal method, but I have read that this also resets the readiness monitors needed to pass a smog test (have not confirmed this myself though as I do not own an OBD2 scanner). Does anyone know of a workaround that I can use to avoid dropping $2,500 on a non-smog related issue?

Any help is greatly appreciated!