Re: Emissions Testing A possible answer

[Eric Hegstrom <ehegstrom@domain.elided>]

They're pretty darn tough on mods here too -- At least if you look at
the letter of the law. I guess the refer back to the EPA and CARB for
those. Though I think the inspection staff is not really qualified to
figure all that stuff out. They don't even do an under the hood check on
my '72 Travelall.  Do they do they testing by percetage there (ppm of HC
and % of CO2)? 

Gee. We have been doing roadside scanners here since 1995, but I think
they call them remote sencsing devices (RSDs) here's the page on it
though I don't why you would care.
http://www.adeq.state.az.us/air/vei/remote.htm

I must admit we have on major advantage here. The standardized testing
centers are much more fair and equitable way to do it than the service
station smog checks in California. I know when I lived there I could
always count on dropping $40 on some sort of useless preheat hose or
something ( not really useless, but you know what I mean ). Many years
ago you used to be able to claim that your vehicle was out of state and
get a waiver, but now they make you test it at the out of state center.
I had to run my '79 Olds through in California 4 or 5 years ago --
luckily that thing always ran sooo clean. It usually rang up under 0.0%
CO2. I can't figure it out but I pitty the fool who tried to commit
suicide in the garage with it.

So I can't figure out why the federal standards are in grams per mile
and the test criteria ( in Arizona at least) is a concentration ppm or
%. Do they factor in the throughput (displacement) of the engine when
comming up with those. I had an RX7 (something like 1 litre
displacement) that was like chernobyl and my olds (something like a 4.5
litre v8) was very clean. Was the RX7 actually adding that much more
mass of pollutants to the air or was the amount of air in the output of
the v8 dilluting it so that the concentration of pollutants was lower
even though they actual net amount (mass) was not.

Hmmm, I should probably get back to work.


Cheers,
Eric


Tom Harais wrote:
> 
> Yeah, but Eric:
> 
> The standards they are holding you to are much less rigid and more easily
> obtainable. Both in the actual emissions level and in allowed
> modifications. Ours is like dealing with the IRS. The answer to everything
> is just "NO!".
> 
> Plus realize, although they aren't testing '73 and earilier vehicles, they
> are subject to the law '65 -'73 that is. And, since they are going to
> "roadside scanners" they will be catching a bunch of those folks too.
> 
> Some day we ought to compare the standards.
> 
> Tom H.

-- 
Eric Hegstrom                          .~.
Senior Software Engineer               /V\  
Sonoran Scanners, Inc.                // \\          L I N U X
ehegstrom@domain.elided        /(   )\  >don't fear the penguin<
520-617-0072 x402                     ^^-^^