In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
There is a definite element of "the sky is falling", BUT, it IS important to actively support what you would like to see and make those wishes known. As others upthread have pointed out, here and in other threads on the topic, the EPA actively is looking for input and they are largely coming up blank. Complacency often will get you the opposite of what you want because your voice is not being heard until it is too late.
Just wanted to say big thanks to alpha and Keith. Both bring an incredible amount of information from both the aftermarket and oe side.
it's been a long time since I sat next to an engine test cell, but there is much involved to making a compliant engine
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Absolutely I don't trust any government agency to just go about their business willy nilly. The problem is that for a sizable portion of the US any regulation is tantamount to destroying an industry and there are people with lots of money willing to keep that thought hammered home, fear is an easy to use motivator. Like has been mentioned here there are checks and public comment periods its not some tyrannical judge jury and executioner system where small businesses exist to be crushed by the big bad socialist government. Context is important, nuance is important, but there is just no room for these things in some peoples view. But if they make another gas can law with a stupid berkeleying safety button that does nothing but spill gas all over you and your car I'm gonna go storm the capital myself.
*PS CIA agent assigned to me that was a joke*
Maniac0301 said:In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Absolutely I don't trust any government agency to just go about their business willy nilly. The problem is that for a sizable portion of the US any regulation is tantamount to destroying an industry and there are people with lots of money willing to keep that thought hammered home, fear is an easy to use motivator. Like has been mentioned here there are checks and public comment periods its not some tyrannical judge jury and executioner system where small businesses exist to be crushed by the big bad socialist government. Context is important, nuance is important, but there is just no room for these things in some peoples view. But if they make another gas can law with a stupid berkeleying safety button that does nothing but spill gas all over you and your car I'm gonna go storm the capital myself.
*PS CIA agent assigned to me that was a joke*
Forget this car tuning stuff. I'll keep my cats.
BUT GIVE ME BACK GAS CANS WITH NORMAL SPOUTS OR GIVE ME DEATH!
For those of you saying the manufacturer should be responsible for how their product is used, that is scary dangerous.
Gas station sells gas, molotov cocktail?
Grocery store sells Sudafed, crystal meth?
Walmart sells kitchen knife, enraged wife stabs cheating husband?
You can build a suppressor out of a fuel filter, should they be controlled?
I could go on and on, but my point is, if manufacturers and retail sellers are held responsible for what is done with their products we are in a heap of E36 M3.
And diesel pickups rolling coal aren't near as big a problem as all of the cars with bad O2 sensors. Half the cars in Montgomery have black rear bumpers over the tailpipes. I live in Alabama, never had an inspection. I also have a Sawzall, a welder and can buy 3 bucks worth of spark plug antifoulers, I'm perfectly capable of bypassing it myself. The only person that should be held responsible for what I do with my car is me.
Justjim75 said:For those of you saying the manufacturer should be responsible for how their product is used, that is scary dangerous.
Gas station sells gas, molotov cocktail?
Grocery store sells Sudafed, crystal meth?
Walmart sells kitchen knife, enraged wife stabs cheating husband?
You can build a suppressor out of a fuel filter, should they be controlled?
I could go on and on, but my point is, if manufacturers and retail sellers are held responsible for what is done with their products we are in a heap of E36 M3.
And diesel pickups rolling coal aren't near as big a problem as all of the cars with bad O2 sensors. Half the cars in Montgomery have black rear bumpers over the tailpipes. I live in Alabama, never had an inspection. I also have a Sawzall, a welder and can buy 3 bucks worth of spark plug antifoulers, I'm perfectly capable of bypassing it myself. The only person that should be held responsible for what I do with my car is me.
There's plenty of precedent for stuff like this already. Stores around me limit and track Sudafed purchases. I have to show ID, and I'm limited in the quantity that I can purchase within a certain timeframe. They'll end up doing something similar with parts that might result in emissions non-compliance.
The example of alcohol sales has already been given too, where a seller is required to confirm the buyer is legally allowed to purchase the product, and can be held liable for over serving that person, or knowingly letting an intoxicated person leave and likely drive home instead of calling them a cab.
Your suppressor example fits too. Suppressors are still legal to own, but you have to jump through a lot of hoops, pass background checks and register them to make it happen.
irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:Maniac0301 said:In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Absolutely I don't trust any government agency to just go about their business willy nilly. The problem is that for a sizable portion of the US any regulation is tantamount to destroying an industry and there are people with lots of money willing to keep that thought hammered home, fear is an easy to use motivator. Like has been mentioned here there are checks and public comment periods its not some tyrannical judge jury and executioner system where small businesses exist to be crushed by the big bad socialist government. Context is important, nuance is important, but there is just no room for these things in some peoples view. But if they make another gas can law with a stupid berkeleying safety button that does nothing but spill gas all over you and your car I'm gonna go storm the capital myself.
*PS CIA agent assigned to me that was a joke*Forget this car tuning stuff. I'll keep my cats.
BUT GIVE ME BACK GAS CANS WITH NORMAL SPOUTS OR GIVE ME DEATH!
I've always just unthreaded the nozzle and poured it out into a funnel.
You guys use the spouts? Jeez, I bet you also read the instructions on a packet of toothpicks... 
In reply to Justjim75 :
If only some context and nuance existed we might not have these arguments. If you want to engage with whats actually being talked about I believe Keith Tanner on page 2 or 3 summed up the situation best.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:Toyman01 (Moderately Supportive Dude) said:In reply to Tom1200 :
I was playing with cars and autocrossing long before I had a decent-paying job. I started with a $200 FB on all-season tires. IIRC I was making around $10/hr at the time.
Making some assumptions about the timeframe, that's probably around $20/hr today.
More like $15/hr. I didn't start autocross until around 2000.
Before that, it was RC cars and boats which are much cheaper.
Maniac0301 said:In reply to Justjim75 :
If only some context and nuance existed we might not have these arguments. If you want to engage with whats actually being talked about I believe Keith Tanner on page 2 or 3 summed up the situation best.
Exactly.
Wal-mart sells a kitchen knife, its purpose is to cut onions and other foods. Rounds-up-to-10o% of the people buying it use it for that purpose. If someone misuses it, that is the user's liability.
Somebody sells an adaptor for threading a Chevy oil filter onto the end of a pistol "for catching cleaning fluids". It is widely known that oil filters make suppressors (crappy though they are), and absolutely nobody is concerned about recycling the cleaning solvents used when you wipe out the barrel, so people buy them, and then it rounds-down-to-0% of the people buying it use it for the stated purpose.
The additional fun is that it is not illegal to USE a suppressor. I go shooting and one of my friends brings a suppressed pistol, or even an MP5SD (my word, do I want to try one of those), I can scare paper targets until ammo company stocks go up 50%. But I cannot OWN a suppressor/suppressed firearm without the proper registration. So in the oil filter case, it's not the use that is the legal problem, it's the ownership, because they are being purchased as suppressors without being registered per the NFA.
Toyman01 (Moderately Supportive Dude) said:Pete. (l33t FS) said:Toyman01 (Moderately Supportive Dude) said:In reply to Tom1200 :
I was playing with cars and autocrossing long before I had a decent-paying job. I started with a $200 FB on all-season tires. IIRC I was making around $10/hr at the time.
Making some assumptions about the timeframe, that's probably around $20/hr today.
More like $15/hr. I didn't start autocross until around 2000.
Before that, it was RC cars and boats which are much cheaper.
In 2000, I was making $9/hr and was drag racing and doing track days with an SA.
I still go by my statement. My apartment also was $450/month rent, good freakin' luck finding something that size in that neighborhood for under $1000...
In reply to Justjim75 :
The law was written with input from industry. It was the logical way to enforce it, just like OEM's are responsible for their cars.
And it's a very different thing to sell an O2 sensor that dies prematurely vs. selling products that intentionally remove hardware.i
I know people here very much don't agree, but we live in a participatory democracy. For every single thing the EPA does, there's a period for public input. So to pretend that things happen randomly and without input ignores the laws that the agency is forced to follow. It's far more likely that 9 out of 10 aftermarket parts makers are totally fine with the process, and the one is crying foul because they are in the minority. And in this case, not only did they not agree, they were making parts to remove hardware very intentionally, where the other 9 are making parts for normal replacement.
This isn't some random application responsibility- it was written into the law back when it was written.
For the gas can thing, the weird push on edge of opening spouts suck. But the ones like the Nospill cans have with the button are great. You just push the button to let fuel out, release to stop. And the button also opens / closes the vent, so the can is well sealed when not in use, which means the gas in it lasts longer.
With light bars and such, at least here in NY, from my understanding of the laws, it's perfectly ok to have them and there's no need to cover them on the road. Basically, as long as you use them as high beams only and never point them at another car, it's legal. There's the separate issue of whether they're actually DOT legal or not, but if you're using them properly, it doesn't really matter as nobody else has to see the beam pattern, so nobody cares (even at inspection time). My Jeep has passed NY inspection just fine with 4 big driving lights on the front (triggered with the high beams) and ECE spec headlights that are technically not DOT legal.
In reply to rslifkin :
But we can agree that anybody who uses them (light bars) while there is anyone else on the road should be strung up by their pinky toes and used as pinatas by over-sugared schoolchildren?
Pete. (l33t FS) said:In reply to rslifkin :
But we can agree that anybody who uses them (light bars) while there is anyone else on the road should be strung up by their pinky toes and used as pinatas by over-sugared schoolchildren?
Yup. 100% agreed. I very deliberately tied the lights on the Jeep to the high beams (and added a disable switch) to prevent myself from ever doing that accidentally. You can have high beams with or without the extra lights, but you can't turn the extra lights on without the high beams the way it's wired.
My personal favorite are the light bar guys or idiots driving around with high beams on that never figure it out when I flash them (in either car). Neither of my cars has wimpy high beams, so you'd think they'd notice I'm trying to tell them something when their retinas start melting. In the Jeep, the lights are all halogen, so a quick flash gives a gentle, but very noticeable warning. A slightly longer flash is just painful (6x 100w bulbs). The BMW has no ability to be gentle. The halogen high beams take a second to get to full brightness, but the projectors are bi-xenon, so those give full blinding immediately as the cutoff shield moves.
In reply to rslifkin :
The local thing among the attention whores is to apparently wire them to ignition. On all the time, even in broad daylight. Makes me wish for a directable parabolic mirror on my roof.
As this thread is evident of, being an a-hole to garner attention makes things bad for everyone.
Keith Tanner said:Note that you do need to have a catalytic converter in the stock location to run the Targa Newfoundland, even in open class. Don't ask me where the stock location is on my car, that's a hard question to answer :)
The stock location is on the exhaust system of the car. I mean, it wouldn't work well on the cooling system. *poker face*
In reply to Brett_Murphy (Ex-Patrón) :
Might be apocryphal, but stage rally requires converters on cars originally so equipped. The original wording of the rule was "must have a functional converter installed". So, someone strapped a converter to the roll cage. It's installed, and it "functions" to meet the letter of the rules.
They changed the wording of the rule after that.
What is interesting is that the test was to see a temperature rise from the front of the converter to the rear. You can do that with a thick pipe inside the front of a hollowed-out shell, the front will read cooler than the rear if you do that.
not the gas can thing again... Just because you bought the most value engineered garbage that barely complied with regulation.. you feel salty against the epa? It's the crappy method of compliance and not the rule that's the issue.
rslifkin said:For the gas can thing, the weird push on edge of opening spouts suck. But the ones like the Nospill cans have with the button are great. You just push the button to let fuel out, release to stop. And the button also opens / closes the vent, so the can is well sealed when not in use, which means the gas in it lasts longer.
With light bars and such, at least here in NY, from my understanding of the laws, it's perfectly ok to have them and there's no need to cover them on the road. Basically, as long as you use them as high beams only and never point them at another car, it's legal. There's the separate issue of whether they're actually DOT legal or not, but if you're using them properly, it doesn't really matter as nobody else has to see the beam pattern, so nobody cares (even at inspection time). My Jeep has passed NY inspection just fine with 4 big driving lights on the front (triggered with the high beams) and ECE spec headlights that are technically not DOT legal.
My Sequoia once or twice has passed without covers on the lightbar and rear mini floods on the roof rack (mostly because I didn't think they noticed them up there since it's a big truck). But on three other occasions the inspection station has told me they have to be covered so I basically just put some black duct tape over them then and there which I brought the specifically for that eventuality.
But if you actually read the law here in Virginia they definitely are not legal in any way shape or form to have any kind of uncovered flood lights above the headlights. All you are technically allowed to have is two additional fog or flood lights below headlight level, OEM or otherwise.
As with any inspection of any type, a lot comes down to what the inspector himself is looking for and many inspectors kind of disregard certain laws. In this area he would have to fall 90% of the Jeeps out there if it actually enforcing a light bar. But I kind of think it's like the Harley thing where they could run it loud exhaust as they want, But God forbid you have a sport bike with loud exhaust.....or worse, a civic.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:In reply to Brett_Murphy (Ex-Patrón) :
Might be apocryphal, but stage rally requires converters on cars originally so equipped. The original wording of the rule was "must have a functional converter installed". So, someone strapped a converter to the roll cage. It's installed, and it "functions" to meet the letter of the rules.
They changed the wording of the rule after that.
What is interesting is that the test was to see a temperature rise from the front of the converter to the rear. You can do that with a thick pipe inside the front of a hollowed-out shell, the front will read cooler than the rear if you do that.
Yeah why don't you try that at a tech inspection and we will see you not running a rally. The word functional indicates that it needs the function as a catalytic converter. just like saying you have to have functional headlights. You can't just put your headlights in the trunk on a switch and say they are functional because they are headlights and they are installed in the trunk...
Let's not get too ridiculous here.
In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :
I agree with this there are good cans that fit the regulations and I do have one it just never seems to be where I need to do an emergency refuel so I gotta buy some crap can from Wal-Mart or the gas station. I've got bigger issues with awful engineering than I do with the regulation that made that engineering required. I do believe there are bad regulations that exist because the people who wrote them paid more attention to the masses than the experts but that isn't the norm and just because there are bad examples does not mean that all examples are bad.
I work in medical building construction planning and design, regulation is incredibly important. Without it we would see some GCs do crazy dangerous stuff for sure. Regulations helps us when working through disputes with the contractors. We can require safety compliance which without the regulation we could potentially be in breach of contract asking a GC to increase costs or impacting schedules and budget without an increase in payment. This has ramifications of millions of dollars and the regulation keeps us from being sued for enforcing safety protocols.
In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
And that is called "creative rules interpretation". It does fit all the criteria listed.
Wasn't the requirements from the challenge to have operational headlights? I seem to recall some clown with a 300zx bolted them to the trunk floor and wired them up to work. Completely legal.
If you want it to work as intended, you better say it. If you don't, don't get butthurt when someone games the rules and/or you didn't think of it first.
In reply to Ranger50 :
Exactly. And the temperature rise rule was a convenience so people didn't have to disassemble their exhaust systems so someone could say "yep, there's a brick in there". Or connect a gas analyzer up to a port before the converter (like German cars with CIS had) and compare it to the tailpipe emissions, which would be the only valid way to verify that the converter was functional.
I mean, they do allow you to put the converter way back at the rear bumper... which people do... because it keeps the converter from functioning, so it won't melt down. It makes verifying that there's a substrate in there easier, but it doesn't verify that the converter is functional, just that it looks like one on the inside. You could grab a dead converter from an exhaust shop and use that. It won't melt down because it won't light off, because it's nonfunctional.
To give you an idea of how long ago the strapped to the cage story and the thickwall pipe cheat were... SCCA was still doing stage rally.
irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:In either case, I'll be happy to give up aftermarket emissions bypasses for any and all of my cars to get rid of the brodozers.
ha, all this says to me is "I'll shoot myself in the foot just so I can shoot you in the foot."
After living with a car that has no cat for awhile I am definitely not going to remove it on any of my other often driven road going cars. It just smells absolutely awful and I can't notice any difference in the way the car drives compared to with a cat. I've had conversations with people who have considered removing them and then invite them to take a ride in a car without a cat. Once I tell them that any difference in performance is negligible that dissuades them 99/100 from removing their catalytic converters. It's not 1979 anymore, cats don't really impede performance.
I dislike the EPA's actions here, it screams of government overreach to me. Just like we should not make tobacco, alcohol or marijuana illegal; education on responsible use and a realistic view on its positives and negatives would provide results without causing nearly the same disruption among the community.
The whole tobacco at 21 thing I have some thoughts on but that's better suited for the off topic area.
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