Emissions news: Memo 1A finally got superseded!

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

That is what I mean. Some aftermarket replacement parts which were acceptable, may not be under more stringent guidelines. Anyway, I am probably reading too much into this. 

tester (Forum Supporter) said:

Anyway, I am probably reading too much into this. 

I hope so, but I am worried for the street side of our hobby.

preach (fs) said:

tester (Forum Supporter) said:

Anyway, I am probably reading too much into this. 

I hope so, but I am worried for the street side of our hobby.

You may legally only install stock replacement, or EO'd modifications, on vehicles operated on public roads.

This is actually nothing new, but mostly people have been flying under the radar due to lax enforcement.

If you don't like it, thank a coal-roller for their part in making the people in charge of enforcement stop looking the other way.

tester (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

That is what I mean. Some aftermarket replacement parts which were acceptable, may not be under more stringent guidelines. Anyway, I am probably reading too much into this. 

This should fall under the idea that retroactive laws can't be applied. If Pete (l33t FS) can get his hands on a used ecoboost swap kit with the EO number intact, he's good to go. The aftermarket cats that don't meet federal guidelines were never legal, it just wasn't enforced until now. 

It's not just the EPA. As of January 1st, it is illegal to sell or install a catalytic converter in Colorado that does not have an EO - which basically means that any replacement cat has to be as good as stock. You are also not allowed to ship a non-EO cat to Colorado. California has been like this for a while (obviously) and I believe NY may be the same. Basically, aftermarket parts have to meet the same standards as OE. These legal cats will cost more because they need more catalyst material to pass the tests, but that's because they actually work instead of -ish.

In reply to thatsnowinnebago (Forum Supporter) :

My specific whinge is that not very many of those kits WERE sold, so unlikely to come up used.  But the file is probably available for download somewhere.  If the hardware was shared with an OE application (probable), I could junkyard the hard bits, use HPT to flash the computer... and it would still be illegal except for being a moral victory.

Assuming that you could even do that with HPT in the near future.

I may have missed the party earlier in this thread, but I had been reading an article at work that cited some concrete numbers for comparison sake and I wanted to post them in here.  This is related to heavy truck diesels which are also heavily regulated by CARB and the EPA.  From what I understand, the fine folks at VW have made the agencies super skeptical now and for good reason.

Automotive World

Special Report: When will the truck industry be ready to ditch diesel?  -  Spoiler, its going to take awhile, and its complicated.

Not ‘clean’ but ‘cleaner’

Diesel will never be a truly zero-emissions fuel, but it is important to remember the huge progress the sector has made in recent decades. According to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) figures, it would take 60 of today’s new diesel trucks to match the emission output from a single truck sold in 1988. Diesel’s NOx output across all across vehicle segments has been reduced by 95% over the last 20 years. Particulate emissions are down by 90% too.

And I agree that the advances we have made are good news, but they need to continue.  Eventually we'll all be tuning our 100 year old internal combustion cars while the young whipper snappers will be loading a new tune into their EV space ship to unlock an extra 1000lbs of thrust.

Does an aftermarket catalytic really need to last as long as an OEM? Are the bulk of them going on OEM cars in high performance exhausts or are they going on something with 150k miles already that is never going to get past 200k? 

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Yeah, that part sucks. It's like the CARB-legal gReddy turbo kits for the 1.6 Miatas. I was pretty excited about those when I was younger. I bet very few are left, if any. 

BoxheadTim (Forum Supporter) said:

EPA is 25 years, but in certain states (like CA), there is still the requirement to meet local emissions. I think in some other states one might be able to get away with collector car plates if those don't require emissions testing.

I am in Alabama so we will be probably the last nation in the country to require emissions testing.

Nitroracer (Forum Supporter) said:

I may have missed the party earlier in this thread, but I had been reading an article at work that cited some concrete numbers for comparison sake and I wanted to post them in here.  This is related to heavy truck diesels which are also heavily regulated by CARB and the EPA.  From what I understand, the fine folks at VW have made the agencies super skeptical now and for good reason.

 

Automotive World

Special Report: When will the truck industry be ready to ditch diesel?  -  Spoiler, its going to take awhile, and its complicated.

Not ‘clean’ but ‘cleaner’

Diesel will never be a truly zero-emissions fuel, but it is important to remember the huge progress the sector has made in recent decades. According to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) figures, it would take 60 of today’s new diesel trucks to match the emission output from a single truck sold in 1988. Diesel’s NOx output across all across vehicle segments has been reduced by 95% over the last 20 years. Particulate emissions are down by 90% too.

And I agree that the advances we have made are good news, but they need to continue.  Eventually we'll all be tuning our 100 year old internal combustion cars while the young whipper snappers will be loading a new tune into their EV space ship to unlock an extra 1000lbs of thrust.

Dude, I can order a performance upgrade on my phone using Apple Pay that will knock 0.5s off my 0-60 time and have it delivered wirelessly to my car TODAY. And I'm not a whippersnapper! 20 years from now it's going to be wild.

thatsnowinnebago (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

Yeah, that part sucks. It's like the CARB-legal gReddy turbo kits for the 1.6 Miatas. I was pretty excited about those when I was younger. I bet very few are left, if any. 

Don't worry, you can buy a better CARB legal kit today for the 1.6 Miata :)

There are at least four legal turbo kits for the 1.6 Miata that I can think of. Only one is available new, but it's actually pretty amazing to realize how many times it's been done.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Haha, 19 yr old me would be thrilled to hear that

1. Coal rollers were going to provoke a backlash sooner or later. I'm a car guy and it took me a grand total of one experience getting "rolled" by a brodozer belching clouds of smoke to get seriously annoyed. Imagine how the average civilian feels. (Reason 9 million you should almost never do something to intentionally troll the public or "stick it to the man," btw.)

I'm actually pleasantly surprised how mild this "crackdown" seems to be.

2. Alfa - I wonder how far we are from OBD systems being able to emissions test the vehicle everytime it runs? If the answer is "close," that seems like it would solve a lot.

DaewooOfDeath said:

2. Alfa - I wonder how far we are from OBD systems being able to emissions test the vehicle everytime it runs? If the answer is "close," that seems like it would solve a lot.

It has done that already in increasing levels of complexity since the intro of OBD2 (like having the dual O2 to measure cat effiicency, all the sensor checks, etc). 

This will effect parts makers more than the individual users. For those that are buying race parts, expect the costs to increase a bit due to having to prove race use, and potentially shrinking market cap due to lack of crossover to other uses. Maybe I should get into making parts for boats, those are not "motor vehicles" by the EPA definition, nor are snowmobiles... 

That all being said it's going to effect "regular people" about not at all, and regular enthusiasts just a little if at all.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

The fact that they clarify race cars /street cars  makes me content. 
 

I do have two comments.  
 

Newer cars are cleaner than older cars and so you have to keep some of the pollution equipment from the swap isn't going to be a tremendous burden. 

Second the new Tesla S specs put our piston engines cars to shame .

0-60 1.9 seconds

top speed 199 mph 

450 mile range. 
yeh it's expensive so is any high performance car when it's new. 

DaewooOfDeath said:

1. Coal rollers were going to provoke a backlash sooner or later. I'm a car guy and it took me a grand total of one experience getting "rolled" by a brodozer belching clouds of smoke to get annoyed. Imagine how the average civilian feels. (Reason 9 million you should almost never do something to intentionally troll the public or "stick it to the man," btw.)

I'm actually pleasantly surprised how mild this "crackdown" seems to be.

2. Alfa - I wonder how far we are from OBD systems being able to emissions test the vehicle everytime it runs? If the answer is "close," that seems like it would solve a lot.

So the answer posted so far are the idea that OBDII measures faults that have shown to produce emissions 1.5x the standard.  Which tends to be about 2x what the car was certified at in the first place.  The idea being you look for symptoms that correlate with emission changed- dead catalyst, misfires, leaks, etc.

But if you are asking if cars will ever be able to detect the actual emissions, live- yes that will be possible.  I'm actually working on NOx sensors, and there are some pretty good indicators that the EU will be making OEM's install the NOx senspors, even though they can't tell the difference between NOx and NH3 (which matters a massive amount).  I have seen CO sensors, and I would imagine that there will be HC sensors that use all of that data.

So, yes, eventually there appears to be sensors in the exhaust that will directly detect criteria emissions.

At the same time, pertty close to lab quality portable emissions decices are out there.  These are what is being used for EU emissions testing, since they have transition to a fully on road system.  (thanks VW for that change- along with the EU being in denial of how effective their lab testing was).

In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :

That's really good news for the aftermarket, it seems. A Hondata (or MS or whatever) would seem to make the EPA happy so long as it maintains these near-future NOx/CO/HC sensors and measures their values. Am I wrong to assume that wouldn't be much of a hardware challenge and a one-time software challenge?

So, I have found an adequate 1989 engine (non OBD-II and non Cat) for my car just 67 miles from home (inquiry sent).

Will Haltech or HPtuner or the like still be able to sell me a stand alone management system for it?

I am apprehensive and I hate this. No choice but to accept it though.

DaewooOfDeath said:

In reply to alfadriver (Forum Supporter) :

That's really good news for the aftermarket, it seems. A Hondata (or MS or whatever) would seem to make the EPA happy so long as it maintains these near-future NOx/CO/HC sensors and measures their values. Am I wrong to assume that wouldn't be much of a hardware challenge and a one-time software challenge?

Not so much- they require a lot of info from the computers to work, and they have their own network....  Possible, but more for OEM application..

The PEMS devices, though, could easily be used by anyone to demonstrate how good a change would be.  I know that a company that advertises with GRM has a PEMS device to demonstrate their hardware.

preach (fs) said:

So, I have found an adequate 1989 engine (non OBD-II and non Cat) for my car just 67 miles from home (inquiry sent).

Will Haltech or HPtuner or the like still be able to sell me a stand alone management system for it?

I am apprehensive and I hate this. No choice but to accept it though.

Well, if you're going to drive it on the road, legally they never could.  You have to swap it in using all of the engine's controls and emissions devices, because that is how it was certified for on-road use. 

This isn't the way it's always been.  It used to be illegal to do any engine swapping at all.  Re-powering an older vehicle with a newer drivetrain was an allowance that enthusiasts lobbied for and won.

On that note: No cat in 1989 makes me think your donor was from a medium duty truck, and I don't think there is an allowance to do that.

TIL that the FRPP controls pack for the 2.0 and 2.3 was not a smog legal piece of kit, so all whinging to the point is moot.

Brass tacks question 

Should i order hp tuners and credits now for future challenge cars? Or am i being paranoid?

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael (Forum Supporter) :

Well.... I was going to do that, BUT.  HPT has a history of removing functionality.  VCM Editor used to be able to do EGR and DPF and other stuff deletes, then they removed that functionality.  This is where you'll see people online asking if anybody has whatever old version.

I don't remember if you can use non-current releases or if the software locks out until you download the latest version.  Probably safest to put HPT on a laptop that never goes online.   IIRC they still handle credits by e-mailing you a text hash that you have to enter manually, and then this hash tells your dongle how many credits are available to register.

So, stupid question...  If we can make really strong power while meeting emission regulations (which we can), why do we continue to have a carve-out for full-time race cars?  Why not require them to meet those same reqs?