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

Good catch, sparky.  Very true.  Referees can get a little lenient on the malaise years, and they didn't seem to care that my 87 E30 was a 49 state car, but in recent years they are definitely getting pickier.

In reply to _ :

It's nice to see a message board really get behind some cocksure, butthurt opinion... especially when I agree with it. :)

If diesel were worth a damn, it'd be in airplanes.

b13990 said:

In reply to _ :

If diesel were worth a damn, it'd be in airplanes.

It is and has been for about 100 years now.

Junkers Jumo engines were opposed-piston diesels and Jet A is pretty much high sulfur diesel without the lubricant package.

ShawnG said:

b13990 said:

In reply to _ :

If diesel were worth a damn, it'd be in airplanes.

It is and has been for about 100 years now.

Junkers Jumo engines were opposed-piston diesels and Jet A is pretty much high sulfur diesel without the lubricant package.

Quoting for emphasis. The military runs everything from HMMWVs and diesel generators to F-22 Raptors on the same fuel: JP-8...

b13990 said:

In reply to _ :

It's nice to see a message board really get behind some cocksure, butthurt opinion... especially when I agree with it. :)

If diesel were worth a damn, it'd be in airplanes.

Ummm... it more or less IS in airplanes.  Darn close to it anyway.

b13990 said:

In reply to _ :

It's nice to see a message board really get behind some cocksure, butthurt opinion... especially when I agree with it. :)

If diesel were worth a damn, it'd be in airplanes.

Also been a push to generate Diesel engines for general aviation to eliminate the need for high octane leaded aviation gas which is very expensive. 

That airplane jab did not pan out, did it?

Interesting info on all the legality of the swap... 5 years until it's a classic and my life gets easier in most states.

Im glad that most of us can have this discussion without insults. I've said what I wanna say and have nothing more to add.

In reply to Curtis73 :

I have friends that work on airplanes. 

Jp8 is diesel with different additives that what you'd find at the pump for your land based vehicles. According to them anyways

In reply to TurboFocus :

I heard it was just a "wider cut" than civilian jet fuel, for reasons of availability.  (The avgas ratings in WWII probably still sting... they want the military's machinery to be able to function on any rock squeezin's they might have to settle for in wartime.)

Kawasaki makes/made Diesel dirtbikes for the military!

In reply to Knurled. :

I don't bother pressing for more info, they tend to hate their lives more than usual lol

Most drink heavily

Knurled. said:

Fueled by Caffeine said:

In reply to alfadriver :

I wouldn't engage.  he's just raging becuase his swap is hard.

Also, if I am not mistaken, not in the US.

 

As much as a lot of people in this country like to complain, we really do have quite a lot of leniency and avenues for legally modifying and upgrading cars compared to the rest of the world.

I could be wrong but it seems, especially on shows like Wheeler Dealers (when they were based in the UK) they go through a bunch of aggravating hoops trying to pass MOT.

In reply to ebonyandivory :

You're not wrong, Europe sucks to be a car person in. Autobahn and nurburgring don't make up for those hoops

In reply to ebonyandivory :

Ex Pat Brit here. While I am all in favor of freedom to modify, within legal, moral and safety grounds. I am 100% OK with the MOT test. It makes sure the cars on the road around you are safe. Not chugging down the road with rusted out rockers barely working brakes broken lights cracked windshield and a mini spare with 25 degrees of camber that's been on for months etc.

In reply to Adrian_Thompson :

I thought the MOT happened after way too many incidents like that.

Now I wonder what the correlation is in the US between states with strict vehicle-inspection laws, and states with areas of high population density AND roads that will kill you if your car or someone else's car is in poor shape.  It does seem like a lot of states with no inspection also have wide, flat roads that don't regularly feature things like a sharp turn at the bottom of a steep mile long grade.

Knurled. said:

In reply to Adrian_Thompson :

I thought the MOT happened after way too many incidents like that.

 

sorry, not sure what you're asking/ referring too. Please expand and I'll attempt an answer n

Appleseed said:

That airplane jab did not pan out, did it?

 

Well, most of the answers that led you to post that were pointing out that certain airplanes that don't have compression-ignition engines do use something similar to diesel fuel. So what?

Most of us have never been on or ever seen a compression-ignition airplane. Presumably that's because compression-ignition engines are heavy, loud, smelly contraptions, and aviation fights mightily against these exact things.

I read up on it a little bit, and there has been some "resurgence" (compared to a baseline of absolutely nothing for decades) in diesel aviation motors in the last 10 years or so. Again, so what? I don't doubt you can finagle just about any ICE into getting an airplane off the ground, but I sincerely hope we're done with compression-ignition in any new application after the emissions scandal. YUCK.

In reply to Adrian_Thompson :

You used absolutely dangerous death trap pieces of E36 M3 to make your point. I wonder if there's a middle-ground where something can be safe yet not be perfect? Perfect being the only criteria I've been led to believe gets a passing grade for MOT.

(Again, I'm open to being wrong or misled)

Adrian_Thompson

with rusted out rockers barely working brakes broken lights cracked windshield and a mini spare with 25 degrees of camber that's been on for months etc.

When I was young and poor my cars had everything you just listed in some combination or another. 

ebonyandivory said:

In reply to Adrian_Thompson :

You used absolutely dangerous death trap pieces of E36 M3 to make your point. I wonder if there's a middle-ground where something can be safe yet not be perfect? Perfect being the only criteria I've been led to believe gets a passing grade for MOT.

As the resident expat fake Brit and real German, that had me nearly spit my tea on my monitor .

No, "perfection" is definitely not required to get a vehicle through the MOT in Britain, otherwise I would have been walking for most of the time. As long as you don't have any holes or sharp edges in the bodywork that shouldn't be there, the safety equipment is present and works (especially brakes, they check the efficiency of the brakes but the passing grades aren't that high), the lights work and point in the right direction, tyres are good and you're not polluting, you're good to go.

In fact some of my stuff that passed the MOT with flying colours would probably have given a German TÜV guy a mild heart attack.

What has got more strict since I left the UK was the introduction of SVA (Single Vehicle Approval) for grey imports and kit cars. Used to be that you pretty much only had to MOT your latest contraption that you threw together in your shed (or brought over from Japan), but these days you have to go through a more in depth test the first time around before you're able to legally drive it on the road.

Even in Germany with its more stringent rules, you generally can make more modifications than people will give you credit for, but it means that you have to figure out what the applicable rules are and ideally work with a TÜV engineer before you start messing about with cars. How do you think the German tuners like Ruf and AMG got started? Not to mention people like Gemballa whose creations are generally road legal in Germany even if good taste decrees they probably shouldn't be.

In reply to BoxheadTim :

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it. For the record, I wasn't trying to be confrontational with my language. I just see that same sentiment over here about strict inspections.

"Well, they're strict so that so you don't get killed by a car driving around with a frame about to break in half with 4 bald tires and a terrible gas (petrol?) leak and sparks flying off the dragging rear bumper..."

As if that's a common occurrence. Meanwhile  my friend with tires that protrude a couple inches from his beautifully restored CJ-8 Scrambler fenders gets another $250.00 ticket...

ebonyandivory said:

In reply to BoxheadTim :

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it. For the record, I wasn't trying to confrontational with my language. I just see that same sentiment over here about strict inspections.

You're welcome - I didn't take it as confrontational, but I'm very aware of that particular sentiment. So figured I'll provide some first hand experience.

"Well, they're strict so that so you don't get killed by a car driving around with a frame about to break in half with 4 bald tires and a terrible gas (petrol?) leak and sparks flying off the dragging rear bumper..."

Well, there *is* that . Yeah, bald tires and the petrol leak, combined with badly working brakes were kinda one of the reasons for the introduction of these checks.

As if that's a common occurrence. Meanwhile  my friend with tires that protrude a couple inches from his beautifully restored CJ-8 Scrambler fenders gets another $250.00 ticket...

I guess that's an easy way to up someone's allegedly non-existing ticket quota.

For the record, I don't mind sensible safety and emissions testing. I do get that it can have an outsized impact on people who can barely make ends meet and need a car to get to work, too. I've been in that situation.

I still view the UK test I experienced as a solid middle ground. The German one seemed to be a tad, well, too Germanic with the additional requirements around it. Especially the part where every modification has to be recorded in the equivalent of the title and the registration document, and that can go down to the actual tire sizes (that's normal) and the make and model of the tire (which sucks if you run an old/classic car and the manufacturer required specific tires).

Neither of them seems to be as nuts as the Japanese Shaken. Now that might be a little over the top.

My concern with emissions (diesel or anything) is the pick-and-choose nature of it.

They monitor NOx, CO, CO2, HC, and PM from vehicles, but give different allowances to ships, oil refineries, etc.

I would rather see a comprehensive and logical approach.  Right now you can make a vehicle with relative impunity.  You can dispose of a vehicle by sticking the whole thing in a shredder.  We (the consumer, not necessarily the EPA) focuses so hard on what happens while we own something that it feels like we just don't give a crap about all the other impact.

We use a plastic cup and feel warm and fuzzy when we recycle it, but most of us don't care what it took to make and distribute the cup, nor do we want to hear that no one is doing anything with our recyclables anymore.  China and other countries stopped taking them, there isn't enough infrastructure to sort it, so most of it just goes to the landfill anyway.

Even things like appliances.  There is that EnergyGuide with a clear pictoral representation of how much energy you can expect to use, but it doesn't say anything about the energy it took to make it, or the energy it will consume to dispose of it.  

It's almost like telling hospitals that they can only treat heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and flu because they are perceived to be the worst things, but they're not allowed to prevent any diseases, nor rehabilitate after those diseases.  Just treat symptoms.

b13990 said:

Appleseed said:

That airplane jab did not pan out, did it?

 

Well, most of the answers that led you to post that were pointing out that certain airplanes that don't have compression-ignition engines do use something similar to diesel fuel. So what?

Most of us have never been on or ever seen a compression-ignition airplane. Presumably that's because compression-ignition engines are heavy, loud, smelly contraptions, and aviation fights mightily against these exact things.

I read up on it a little bit, and there has been some "resurgence" (compared to a baseline of absolutely nothing for decades) in diesel aviation motors in the last 10 years or so. Again, so what? I don't doubt you can finagle just about any ICE into getting an airplane off the ground, but I sincerely hope we're done with compression-ignition in any new application after the emissions scandal. YUCK.

You're going to see more and more piston diesel aero engines as time goes on because it's much easier to deliver one type of fuel to the airport than two. Avgas will be getting more expensive and harder to get.

Lower rpm is needed in propeller applications because once you get above 2500rpm or so, the propeller tips are going supersonic which causes a huge amount of stress on the blades and noise. You solve this with a reduction gearbox or building an engine that runs optimally at a lower rpm. This makes diesel piston engines pretty much ideal for small aircraft applications.

Stampie said:

Justjim75 said:

In reply to 06HHR :

they are HARDCORE patriots, at least on the outside.  

Unrelated to the topic but this is a pet peeve of mine. I see too many people wear patriotism on their sleeve. I remember driving down a street on September 12th 2001 and every mailbox had a flag on it. Where were those flags the day, week, month, or year before?  It's easy to say you're a patriot but are you electing people that take care of our veterans? One thing I hate to see is a car dealership with the huge American flag that you can see for miles. They aren't patriots.  They're just hoping it'll sell more cars. Ok off my soap box now. 

 

They are HARDCORE patriots.  So HARDCORE in fact that they described it as “bittersweet” that they didn’t actually serve.

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/discoverys-diesel-brothers-star-heavy-d-talks-mormon-past