A Polluted Future?

[GeneW]

Originally Posted by James

Gene-what do you think about the stringent emission standards that started in california and spread to the rest of the country? I almost think it has gone too far in that there are so many o2 sensors and cats to fail that every vehicle is more expensive and likely to fail. It sure has cleaned up the air a lot in the cities though. You can see it.

When the "cats" first came out in the 1970s I did not like them. They were picky, clogged easily (in part because people used leaded gas in cars that had them) and the engine controls were really primitive. My first car was a 1973 Nova which I think had no cat converter and could run leaded gasoline.

My next few cars were equipped with cats but did not have the ECUs that really do a cat converter justice. So the single stage converters of that time did not last long and often were annoying in how they limited performance.

Things have come a long way. ECUs are more intelligent and more intelligently designed. Two stage cats work well. My Yaris has VVT and a lot of other slick featurers which make it reasonably efficient.

I wish I could buy an early 1970s car, retrofit it with something like Megasquirt and TBI and then do a few other things to run close to "pre detonation" and use a wide band sensor to get a good "lean burn" profile. No cat converter, but leave the factory pollution controls be.

Leave on the EGR (which helps with detonation and NOx) and PCB (which helps with oil control and hydrocarbons) and see what I can do. Might run like a dog but in time it would get great mileage without a flaky carb and vacuum controls.

This wish shows my feelings towards ECUs - they have come into their own. The converter is like taxes or grey hair, you're gonna have to deal with it.

What's odd is that I sometimes run across vehicles without cat converters, mainly motorcycles. I can smell the difference right away. I sorta miss the "old" cars, at least until I remember tons of them in one place all idling. Let's face it; they stank. I can't imagine going back to those days with rich mixtures and... leaded gasoline.

In some ways the environmentalists have made things better. I just wish they'd knock off the Class Warfare and focus on people.

Gene