Please Note: I have done my best to present this issue in a way that is not political. Please try to keep it that way. This post is informational.


The EPA recently proposed new rules to be considered by congress regarding medium and heavy engines and their impact on greenhouse gasses. Included in this piece of proposed legislation is a small section concerning tampering with emissions control devices on cars. SEMA and other groups feel the proposed new rule will prohibit people from tampering with emission controls, even in race car applications. The EPA has said that they will base enforcement on whether the vehicle is used EXCLUSIVELY for racing. The problem is that the regulation does not include any language that clearly expresses the intent that enforcement would not include vehicles used exclusively for racing.

The actual rule in question reads as follows:

"Certified motor vehicles and motor vehicle engines and their emission control devices must remain in their certified configuration even if they are used solely for competition or if they become nonroad vehicles or engines. 80 Fed. Reg. 40138, 40565 (July 13, 2015)."

Many have concluded that this language absolutely means that even if you use your car exclusively for racing, you cannot tamper with the emissions control system. The EPA claims that this is already the rule, but SEMA believes this proposed language goes further.

Snopes says the claim that the EPA is trying to ban the conversion of street cars to race cars is "mostly false", but clearly agrees that the race car you build from a street car must retain the emissions control systems:

http://www.snopes.com/epa-seeks-ban-...r-conversions/

Many believe this would go way beyond simply removing emissions devices. For example, this article interprets the rule to outlaw a reflash of an ECU:

http://www.autoblog.com/2016/02/09/e...date-official/

Once again, the EPA says that this is already the rule and the new language doe not change anything.


This rule would not go into effect until 2018 if it even passes. Some folks believe that because it does not contain retroactive language that it will not affect cars built before 2018. I am not sure those people are correct.

Here are a couple of other articles discussing the proposed rules.

http://www.roadandtrack.com/motorspo...ctually-means/

http://www.motortrend.com/news/epa-p...s-to-racecars/

Finally, SEMA has gone beyond opposing this new rule and is trying to pass legislation protecting the conversion of street cars to race cars.

 

Interesting. Wonder what kind of fight the aftermarket parts and racing shops are going to do?

I stopped hopping up cars a long time ago. Reverting them back, to be able to pass smog tests and get re-registered became too much of a hassle.

 

Can't say I'm terribly worried one way or the other. Enforcement against legitimate race cars is never going to be an issue, regardless of what may be said. All of my cars retain their stock cat, and will continue to do so in the future. It's just the right thing to do.

The tuning world has become remarkably cavalier about slapping a test pipe on every car for nominal performance gains. This practice needs to end, because this attitude is what drives these types of changes.

 

But that's just it, Jeff. Your car would not meet the letter of the law (unless your TPC kit is EPA or CARB certified and I missed it).

 

This is a brief written by the attorney for the 24 Hours of Lemons. He makes a compelling case for the plain interpretation of this law.

http://www.24hoursoflemons.com/image...m_medium=email

 

Do you need to go to an EPA referee to get this certification? Will the certificate be a lifetime thing or do you need to re-inspect the modifications every so often?

Thanks!

 

Semantics. I am a big fan of Snopes, but they often get in over their heads regarding anything related to the law. Here's how their reasoning works in this situation: Potato skins are a real problem. They don't biodegrade and they are overflowing our landfills and winding up in our lakes and rivers. A federal agency proposes a change to the CFR that will make it illegal to "alter the original configuration of potato skin." Mashed potato fans our outraged and pronounce this to mean the end of mashed potatoes. Snopes reads the regulation and proclaims that the law says nothing about mashed potatoes; it only applies to potato skins. But what everyone who loves mashed potatoes knows is that, while you can have mashed potatoes wherein the potato isn't skinned, it's never going to be as good as mashed potatoes made from peeled potatoes. So while this potato regulation isn't a de jure ban on mashed potatoes, it is a de facto one.

In short:

 

I put a "high flow cat" on my S2000 once, it was a piece of crap and am now back to ceramic. I am also getting too old to mess with emissions.

I don't care if putting on test pipes comes with a hefty fine. I think not allowing engine tunes might be going a bit far. As long as a catalyst is burning off the unburnt fuel at the back end, if someone wants to change the spark curve or lean the mixture, it does not seem like a big deal to me.

But all of this is a drop in the bucket when compared to Chinese and Indian coal plants.

I am a warming skeptic anyway. Not that it is not a little warmer, but that it is definitive that it is human caused (it has been much warmer many times on this planet before man) and that we could do a whole lot to stop it.

I read some article that using the current climate model if the US stopped emitting all CO2 that by 2050 we would have slowed the PREDICTED temperature rise by two tenths of a degree. Whoopty do.

CO2 is a trace gas currently at 400 parts per million, I am not convinced it is the ONLY factor in the equation.

With that said, I am all for pollution reductions because they are a good thing. Less pollution = mo bettah. I just don't think ruling out test pipes is going to save polar bears. If you want to save the animals, outlaw traditional Chinese medicine instead of aftermarket exhausts.

 

Also, if anyone cares, I can write up an explanation of how administrative law works in America. If no one is interested, I'll probably skip it, because it's kind of a pain to explain.

 

To echo what Vader said, I completely understand the need to reduce air pollution (if not for global warming then for our lungs' sake). But race car emissions are a fart in the wind. So few people race their cars that even if we were to ban all racecar emissions, the impact it would have on the environment is going to be on the order of a dozen decimals points of a percent. As statistically close to zero as you can get.

Also, legal Bill, I think it's certainly a good goal to try to keep this thread from turning into a "Donald Trump will save us from the Mexicans" debate, but I'd argue that it's virtually impossible to keep a thread like this from being political, since politics are at the heart of the issue.