Excellent. Diesel brothers fined $850K plus $1.2m in fees.

alfadriver said:

In reply to irish44j :

For Rally cars, that run hard all of the time, I would put the catalyst a good yard from the headers.  It's very much hot enough there for them to work great, and far enough away to not come close for them to melt down due to the heat at peak power fuel.  Perhaps that far back, you could fit tome someplace safe.

There are teams running them at the exhaust tip, actually. Mine is in the stock position but well-protected lol. Most people just lose their entire exhausts, cat included haha.....

irish44j said:

Knurled. said:

In reply to irish44j :

Then the legislative gears clank into motion, and the easy fix for that is that private citizens in the US may not purchase goods from outside the US.

 

Oh yes that would have all sorts of other issues, but no simple solution is without its unintended consequences.

Wasn't a commentary on whether it's right or wrong. I work for the Feds, so I know how the "gears" work firsthand. But the reality is the federal government is only concerned with widespread/big-money illegal activities by large organizations where enforcement actually makes a tangible difference. Joe blow getting an ebay header for his crappy old e30 doesn't reach the cost/benefit threshhold for enforcement. 

Only as long as Joe Blow stays under the radar.

Jack Sha-theed berking up his Diesel powered truck so it blows soot everywhere and shouting "WOOOO!!!!!  FREEDOM COAL!!!  SUCK IT, ENVIRONMENT!" on the other hand...

Isn't this where we came in?

Incredible. Five pages of arguing and it didn't get shut down. Uh, good job. This might be forward progress for this board.  

_ said:

Incredible. Five pages of arguing and it didn't get shut down. Uh, good job. This might be forward progress for this board.  

Nothing wrong with a lively discussion and disagreement, as long as we don't go into name-calling and childish insults against fellow members. 

irish44j said:

_ said:

Incredible. Five pages of arguing and it didn't get shut down. Uh, good job. This might be forward progress for this board.  

Nothing wrong with a lively discussion and disagreement, as long as we don't go into name-calling and childish insults against fellow members. 

The key to name-calling and insults, is to ignore them, because they are irrelevant to the discussion.

*ahem*

chandler said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

 

Does Myin Fleata sell shirts?

 

Maybe watch on April 1 :)

Robbie said:

_ said:

In reply to NickD :

I know. I thought the same, the fact is, gasoline cars just don't bellow smog like the diesels do. They also don't stink nearly as much and smell goes away within seconds. Unlike diesel, which lingers like a bad politician. 

Your sensory perception alone is probably not a good judge of relative pollution. What about things you can't smell at all like carbon dioxide? Or things that smell awful but aren't really pollution...

 

I hope you meant to say carbon Monoxide. Carbon dioxide is not pollution. It is plant food.

If half the effort that has been spent chasing carbon dioxide in the last 10 years had been spent chasing particulates and gases that are truly harmful, our air would be much cleaner and healthier.

Keith Tanner said:

chandler said:

In reply to Keith Tanner :

 

Does Myin Fleata sell shirts?

 

Maybe watch on April 1 :)

I will buy ALL THE SHIRTS

Well, not literally all of them.  Actually probably just one.  Or maybe two.

bigben said:

Robbie said:

_ said:

In reply to NickD :

I know. I thought the same, the fact is, gasoline cars just don't bellow smog like the diesels do. They also don't stink nearly as much and smell goes away within seconds. Unlike diesel, which lingers like a bad politician. 

Your sensory perception alone is probably not a good judge of relative pollution. What about things you can't smell at all like carbon dioxide? Or things that smell awful but aren't really pollution...

 

I hope you meant to say carbon Monoxide. Carbon dioxide is not pollution. It is plant food.

If half the effort that has been spent chasing carbon dioxide in the last 10 years had been spent chasing particulates and gases that are truly harmful, our air would be much cleaner and healthier.

Carbon dioxide is a pollutant as much as it's a major consideration to the environment.  Sure it's "plant food" but so are a whole lot of other things.

Current plant life is happy with sub-300ppm CO2.  We're way over 400ppm.

In reply to Knurled. :

Oxygen and water in excess are also deadly. My point is there are more important things to worry about, and pollutants should that cause accute harm.

As for CO2, there is more than one way to adjust the balance.  We need to stop cutting down trees to build strip malls and HOAs.

Every construction project I see around here starts with stripping every living thing from the lot. It makes me cringe every time I drive by one and say "Don't you know how long it takes to grow a tree over 8ft tall in Texas!" (While shaking my first.)

bigben said:

We need to stop cutting down trees to build strip malls and HOAs.

Just out of curiosity, what does cutting down trees have to do with HOAs? 

I'm not a fan of coal rollers but I'm no saint. I enjoy the smell of the exhaust from pre-catalytic converter cars. I've deleted them on several cars I've owned over the years. Usually cheap beaters that had plugged or rusted out ones. If they start requiring them on older cars it will kill part of this hobby for me, the same with fuel injection (go ahead and ok boomer but I'm 32) I was raised around carbureted cars and still prefer them. 

irish44j said:

bigben said:

We need to stop cutting down trees to build strip malls and HOAs.

Just out of curiosity, what does cutting down trees have to do with HOAs? 

Nothing at all, but I am imagining Sammy Hagar's "VOA" with new lyrics.

(Knurledmom gave me the VOA album as a present years ago, because 1 Can't Drive (55)' was on it)

alfadriver said:

Knurled. said:

In reply to Rufledt :

"Modern cats" are actually a lot smaller than the 70s and 80s converters.   One funny side effect of having faster computers, and wideband oxygen sensors, is there is no longer a big swing across stoich.  The computers are fast enough and the sensors accurate enough that they can control to precisely stoich, cylinder by cylinder with only one sensor in some cases.  What this means is the converter no longer has to be an enormous brick to handle being loaded up with hydrocarbons and CO2, and then flush it all out with oxygen when it swings lean, and so on.

 

If you want to update the emissions controls on an older engine, start with the engine management.

 

Yea, big yea.  Add an accepted universal catalyst with a WB controlled MS to your classic car, and you will be doing a LOT of good.  I'd add making sure the PCV system is working and sealed, and that the fuel system has some kid of vapor control that the engine gets to burn.  None of that is overly complex, but it will be SO much more effective.

Bonus is that you will enjoy the car better, since you won't be fighting a CO headache and your clothing won't smell like unburt gas.

I swapped an 98 LS1 into a 67 Chevelle and an 13 LFX into a 66 Chevelle and ran catalytic converters on both. Much simpler and both doubled the HP and torque so no complaints. 32 mpg (so far) in the 66 ain't bad either. No need to break the rules with the technology available to today.

irish44j said:

bigben said:

We need to stop cutting down trees to build strip malls and HOAs.

Just out of curiosity, what does cutting down trees have to do with HOAs? 

Tightly packed neighborhoods with no room to leave native trees are much more likely to have HOAs than more spread out neighborhoods where there is space to leave native growth undisturbed.  Correlation not causation in statistical terms. (And I enjoy taking digs a HOAs) 

bigben said:

irish44j said:

bigben said:

We need to stop cutting down trees to build strip malls and HOAs.

Just out of curiosity, what does cutting down trees have to do with HOAs? 

Tightly packed neighborhoods with no room to leave native trees are much more likely to have HOAs than more spread out neighborhoods where there is space to leave native growth undisturbed.  Correlation not causation in statistical terms. (And I enjoy taking digs a HOAs) 

I think it just depends on where you are. This area most neighbohoods are very wooded, and also have HOAs. My neighborhood has an HOA (admittedly, not a very active one) and is typical big-city suburb of houses built in the 80s on 1/4-1/3rd of an acre each, so fairly close together.  I'd say my house is within falling range of 30-40 trees over 50 feet tall (one crushed my deck a couple years ago, actually).

It's mostly the much larger-lot new-construction stuff ("McMansions") where I usually see the almost-clear-cutting of trees (mostly in areas without HOAs, ironically). Seems to me rich people like to have giant manicured lawns, not giant woodlands. I always think it's pretty lame. 

In reply to irish44j :

Your neighborhood was built 40 years ago and likely mostly clear cut when it was built. 

-which amuses me because it satisfies your "HOA's have trees", Aaaaaand bigben's shaking his fist at HOA neighborhood construction because "they are evil because they cut down all the trees"

Just a couple of tidbits,

1. Diesel is 7 lb/gal, unleaded is 6 lb/gal.

2. I live an hour out from Salt Lake City. The air is bad enough there to correlate to a pack of cigarettes a day.

3. I have been here for days when you could not see mountains from two miles away. Days like that were not even considered bad enough for locals to talk about. They talk about the days you can't see streetlights at night from three houses away.

In this case, doctors getting involved is really not like an HOA with their panties in a bunch. There are big pushes out here to "Be idle free," even in the drive through. 

Matthew

Well this will definitely bring a lot more business to guys like the gale banks of the world who focus on fast clean diesels.

the epa went after Joel Rosen and Baldwin motion back in the mid 70s as a result of the publicity etc from his big block super Vegas. As a result his stuff after that was listed as for racing or off road only.

Sidenote: I am in favor of cutting down HOAs.

bigben said:

I hope you meant to say carbon Monoxide. Carbon dioxide is not pollution. It is plant food.

If half the effort that has been spent chasing carbon dioxide in the last 10 years had been spent chasing particulates and gases that are truly harmful, our air would be much cleaner and healthier.

So you know, over the past 10 years, the required drop in NMOG, CO, NOx and PM across the world is considerably more than CO2.  And the projections going forward keep doing the same.  For instance, the PM requirement used to be 10mg/mi, and it's on it's way to 1mg/mi.  That's a 90% reduction of the current standard.  Now that NMOG+NOx is being put together, the fleet average of that will be dropping by another 20-30% from just today, which is a fleet drop from a decade ago of about 50%.  And that does mean the major markets around the world- if you just count China, the required reduction is on the 80% range from a decade ago- and in certain regions, much more than that.

I'm very sure that the pressure to drop CO2 isn't anywhere near that much.  It's very much there, but it's not nearly the drop that all of the other emissions face.

So, I have a few issues with regulation. (to the guy complaining about not reading that other thread, i did)

The first is that once it gets momentum it can be hard to stop at what most might call a reasonable level. I was petrified, reluctant, unwilling, nervous and anxious to go to any inspection because of my experiences in Germany.

TUV is a literal nightmare, I'm not joking when I say I lost literal sleep trying to get cars to pass TUV the legitimate way.
A slightly wiggly exhaust heat shield in an inconsequential place fails you. Not working fog lights is a fail but removing them entirely and just leaving and empty hole is ok. Factory auto-dimming mirrors almost caused a failure (the guy literally argued with the inspector and they finally shined a light on it to prove it was functioning fine). A supervisor had to remove factory plastic under-trays because neither he nor the inspector knew what it was.
My bumper wiggled a little bit when you touched it and this is when I stopped getting inspections the legitimate way. Inspectors reasoning is that it could fall of when im driving down the road, to prove that it was secured just fine I did LITERAL PULL-UPS and HUNG off the bumper while he was telling me it did not matter. I was lucky to have the friends I did and I passed TUV through other methods. Every story I mentioned here happened to either me or someone I knew personally.

To address this concern of mine, when is the EPA happy? Easy answer is when there are no more defeat devices for road going cars. What happens when they go after classics? What happens when they go after racecars? What happens when they go after intakes? What happens when we end up with a Germany, Belgium, etc?
This is why I'm an individual rights guy and you'll be hard pressed to convince me otherwise.
I see the benefit of going after diesels because of the egregious 13% of offenders, I get that it hurts others people lungs.
That said, I'd rather have poor lungs and the freedom to do the things I enjoy than healthy lungs and an extremely boring life. I hate diesels rolling coal and if I never saw one again I'd be happy, however I'll happily defend their ability to roll coal if it means that I can turn off EGR in my tune because I want to run a different header, turbo kit, etc.
My claim is we have more in common with diesel bros than many on here want to admit

alfadriver said:

Curtis73 said:

Disagree.  The hydrocarbon chains in diesel contain more carbon atoms per molecule, but there is no more carbon in a gallon of diesel than there is in gasoline... in fact, potentially less since diesel is less dense than gasoline.

It's the ratio that's the problem,

Gas is generally C8H18 (4:9), diesel is C10H20 (1:2)- C15-H28.  So for the energy output, there will be more CO2 vs. water for diesel than gas.  So on an energy basis, the gained mileages is offset by the increased carbon.

Please say more. 

My fuel consumption rate reduction is high enough with the diesel to offset the purchase costs in a measurable amount of time.  The gas burners in our area are burning a lot more fuel when they are pulling the same load.  For the record we leave them stock and I HATE COAL ROLLING.  

There are many benefits to towing with a diesel in this area and with the weight we are pulling.  They cruise up the hills with ease.  Our fuel mileage went up on average 4-6 mpg depending on where in the country we were at.  We have even compared head wind and tail wind averages and the difference is significant enough to be part of the discussion.

TurboFocus said:

That said, I'd rather have poor lungs and the freedom to do the things I enjoy than healthy lungs and an extremely boring life. 

que?   As someone born with pretty bad asthma... this makes no sense.. I'd trade lungs with you in a second if I could.  

TurboFocus said:

That said, I'd rather have poor lungs and the freedom to do the things I enjoy than healthy lungs and an extremely boring life. I hate diesels rolling coal and if I never saw one again I'd be happy, however I'll happily defend their ability to roll coal if it means that I can turn off EGR in my tune because I want to run a different header, turbo kit, etc.
My claim is we have more in common with diesel bros than many on here want to admit

The thing is, meeting emissions standards hasn't watered down performance vehicles, at all. If anything, it's improved them. You can walk into any "Big Three" dealer right now and buy a car with over 700hp, a full factory warranty, and they're cleaner than the 350hp version of the same car from 15 years ago. The diesel guys complain about emissions gear hurting reliability, but they ignore the fact that the new engines with emissions gear make 1000ft-lbs while being several orders of magnitude cleaner than the old, reliable engines they covet that made 400ft-lbs.

Also, it's not the EPA that brought this lawsuit against the DBs it was a group of Doctors. And it's not the EPA doing annual inspections on vehicles. The EPA will go after manufacturers, aftermarket companies and tuning shops that allow consumers to work around emissions regulations. Especially if they have a high profile and tons of evidence that they're breaking laws. But the EPA doesn't do any emissions testing or safety inspections on cars after they're sold and in consumer hands. That's all done on a State by State basis. Some are strict, while others have no annual testing of any kind. You're always free to live anywhere that you want, free to vote for political leaders with views that align with your own, and free to run for office yourself to try and create, modify or protect laws that you value.