Believe me, it will go way beyond the old clunker bills. (There's no wrath like a carbon footprint zealot!)
Believe me, it will go way beyond the old clunker bills. (There's no wrath like a carbon footprint zealot!)
I remember as a kid a huge cold snap that killed off half the orange orchards in central Florida. They had freezing temps for an extended period and killed off many many orange groves. Drove entire businesses out of business. IIRC, this was in the early 80's.
Curmudgeon wrote: That's already happened with 'clunker bills'. I'm not talking about cash for clunkers, there have been various programs to remove old bombers from the roads in the name of safety, fuel economy and emissions. Hemmings started a big campaign against them some time back.
Old cars are safer for the people not driving them. When a modern tank crashes into an old take-out box, the people in the tank will be very safe. They should be thanking us.
Making a new car takes a lot of energy (as in equivalent to many years' worth of driving), keeping an old one on the road saves that energy. Many modern cars are still struggling to catch up to the MPG of those light old cars. Again, they should be thanking us.
Slap on a 2-stage catalytic converter setup like modern cars have and it'll be a close fight in emissions too...
If it's another attempt to prop up local automakers with a nice heaping helping of Broken Window Fallacy they should just be honest about it.
Ha! I'm sure everybody with old cars will be lining up to put catalytic convertors on their hot rods and hoopties.
I love 80's and 90's imports for their size and MPG, but I also pray to FSM and sacrifice a lot of goats and chickens to get my old cars to pass emissions every couple years. Then I put one of my modern Honda or Toyotas on the smog dyno and see that HC and CO are almost non-existent out the tailpipe.
As a SoCal resident I can clearly see and enjoy the cleaner air that regulations has gotten us.
I'm not denying that emissions regs have had a big positive effect and I don't want to live in clouds of smog. The fact is, the clunkers targeted by the bills that Hemmings was against constitute a microscopic percentage of all cars currently registered and they are a valuable source of spare parts for the hobby cars which are an even smaller percentage. C4C caused a big percentage of those cars to disappear. That bill also removed a sizeable number of cars which weren't exactly nasty at the tailpipe.
I live in Rhode Island, probably the most liberal state in the country. (Not that there's anything wrong with that and I'm not advocating another unsolvable idealogical debate about political philosophy). But in any case Little Rhody will soon be adopting Califormia emission standards. I see that as one step further down the slippery slope to strictly limiting or banning the use of vintage vehicles. I'm not against emission control, but I say leave vintage vehicles out of it. The U.S. has done a phenominal job of reducing the overall carbon footprint during the past 25 years. We're already one of the global role models. Now it's up to China, India and Russia to do their part. That's where most of the world's carbon emissions are coming from. A few day's worth of emissions from one unscrubbed Qingdao coal-burning power plant probably surpasses the output of every vintage vehicle in the U.S. for a year.
I don't believe C4C had much (if anything) to do with reducing old vehicle emissions. It was to encourage people to buy from our dying domestic car industry.
Unfortunately in CA, only 1975 and older vehicles are considered exempt from SMOG.So the hot rod guys are clear, but us weirdos that like the 80's stuff are SOL. Would love to see them bump it to 25 years, or at least lower those standards. The majority will still drive new cars, so we'll still get cleaner air but let us "collectors" keep the good stuff going.
In reply to Cone_Junkie:
<<<Glad we don't have emmissions......as most of my vehicles throw some unburnt fuel out the back. 
And I agree with Gary's perspective on this crap.
Cone_Junkie wrote: Ha! I'm sure everybody with old cars will be lining up to put catalytic convertors on their hot rods and hoopties.
I know I'm in the minority, but the 2002's getting a cat. The Ranchero would, but I'm pretty sure it would just kill it with carbureted sloppiness.
I would not consider removing a cat from a car which had and could use one.
Ransom wrote:Cone_Junkie wrote: Ha! I'm sure everybody with old cars will be lining up to put catalytic convertors on their hot rods and hoopties.I know I'm in the minority, but the 2002's getting a cat. The Ranchero would, but I'm pretty sure it would just kill it with carbureted sloppiness. I would not consider removing a cat from a car which had and could use one.
Ha, shows you. My engine swapped Samurai has a cat. Of course I bought it that way. 
Gary wrote: ...But in any case Little Rhody will soon be adopting Califormia emission standards. I see that as one step further down the slippery slope to strictly limiting or banning the use of vintage vehicles....
I would not get too worried about it. CA shows no sign of realistically banning vintage vehicles, and we have been playing this game a lot longer. Even in CA, vintage car use is VERY VERY low compared to modern cars, so, essentially it's a pretty silly concept. Slippery Slope is a logical fallacy for a reason.
And yes, the cars the take the biggest hit in CA are the 80's cars. A maze of pollution crap on them and no sign of that every going away. Maybe when the number on the road drop below a certain number? Who knows.
aircooled wrote: And yes, the cars the take the biggest hit in CA are the 80's cars. A maze of pollution crap on them and no sign of that every going away. Maybe when the number on the road drop below a certain number? Who knows.
I wonder whether we'll hit a point where older cars can be formally updated. There are a number of vendors now making you-don't-need-to-know-much bolt-on, self-learning EFI arrangements. If something like that can get approval as consistently cleaner-than-original for older cars...
Kalifornia has some really stupid rules. For instance, no aftermarket catalysts. So if your mid 80's hooptie has a bad cat but otherwise is sound you cannot use an aftermarket cat, even if it sucks in smog and spits out kittens and cedar trees. So otherwise sound and clean cars wind up in the crusher. Where is the smart in that?
Curmudgeon wrote: Kalifornia has some really stupid rules. For instance, no aftermarket catalysts. So if your mid 80's hooptie has a bad cat but otherwise is sound you cannot use an aftermarket cat, even if it sucks in smog and spits out kittens and cedar trees. So otherwise sound and clean cars wind up in the crusher. Where is the smart in that?
Some of the cars you can't even get OEM cats for anymore.
And it's not just mid-80s hoopties.
Curmudgeon wrote: Kalifornia has some really stupid rules. For instance, no aftermarket catalysts....
How exactly do they enforce that? Is it new? If it isn't, it's certainly not affecting me. I have a car that definitely does not have a factory cat on it that I put on
You can use aftermarket, but they have to be CARB (California Air Resources Board) approved. Unfortunately a lot of cars don't have CARB approved options other than OEM. They inspect the stamping on the catalyst if it looks like it has been put on in the last couple of years (when the new law was implemented). It actually benefits consumers because you can no longer be sold a cat with such little precious material in it that it only lasts for a year.
I've been trying to find a replacement cat for my neighbor's 2000 Infiniti i30 for the last year. No luck. Either OEM or an approved cat that has to be welded in, which I'm not willing to do since it's part of the manifold. My welding skills are not good enough to attempt that.
Update (rather then delete the previous post):
I see it now. That law was enacted in 2009. I might have bought my cat before that. I checked RockAuto and they show cats that are not legal for registered vehicles in CA or NY. I am not sure that means they won't SELL one to CA though.
It does explain a conversation I had with someone at Christmas though. They said the mechanic would only put a factory cat on their car, which was something like $1500. An aftermarket was $300 or so. Pretty big deal especially when you consider you cannot legally sell a car in CA that won't pass smog.
Cone Junkie answered it. Getting CARB certs is not easy so many are left only with the OE cat option. If they are discontinued you are screwed. That's why if you look at, say, a Walker exhaust catalog everything says '49 state only'.
I just checked the CA database for finding a compatible cat:
https://ssl.arb.ca.gov/PartsSearchTool/CatalystSearchTool.aspx
It does not even LIST any cars previous to 1995!! I wonder what the deal is with that?
Ransom wrote: I would not consider removing a cat from a car which had and could use one.
That's one less thing to talk about if you are going to car meets/shows.
aircooled wrote: I just checked the CA database for finding a compatible cat: https://ssl.arb.ca.gov/PartsSearchTool/CatalystSearchTool.aspx It does not even LIST any cars previous to 1995!! I wonder what the deal is with that?
Pre OBDII most likely.
I had a buddy who used an old/good used cat I had laying around recently. The trick is to make it look like it's been there before 2009. Luckily bare metal rusts pretty quickly in an exhaust system. As long as it was installed before the new law they can't make you upgrade.
I bought a MagnaFlow high flow cat for my race car in 08, I'm paranoid they'll flag it because it still looks new because I never drive the car (7K in the last 6 years). So far so good.
I just looked up 50 state legal cats. Magnaflow sells one (for an 87 B2000 at least) that is pretty much the same cost as the generic ones.
The primary difference (probably the only difference realistically) is that its a weld in style. But that could be "updated" pretty easily.
OK, much less worried now.
(this thread has taken a very strange path)
If you put a cat made for an EFI engine on a carbureted engine, it will plug up in no time flat.
I've never heard of any difference in cats between carb and EFI. Besides, running lean is much harder on cats than running rich (which carbs usually do). Too much heat on lean burns.
Neat; maybe I can cat the Ranchero after all! I believe the engine to be healthy and the carb is newer (so not worn out, but who knows how good or bad the tune is; haven't had it running enough to have a feel for how well it even drives).
I'll have to keep looking into this once the project's closer to fruition...
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