What does everyone do about emissions???

[kholding]

Currently building a '73 and was just wondering when it is all done, what am I going to have to do about emissions? Will I need a catalytic converter on this thing? What is everyone else doing?...

 

[Shiner]

I just make sure my vehicles are old enough to be exempt in NC.;D
I'm no help, I know.

 

[Kirk K]

In California, model year 1975 and older are smog exempt.

 

[Terkish]

In Utah you only need a catalytic converter if it came with it from the factory.

 

[miikee73]

Every state is different. I'm lucky my last 2 states exempt 75 and back.I don't think cats came in until '75. Thats why I looked for a pre 75 when I was looking.Ended up with a 73,no cat ,no air pump,just a pcv. ;D

 

[shamu]

In Texas.No emmissions for EB 1966 to 1977. Just the general safety. Lights,horn wipers,glass,ebrake and they do a driving test to ck out the brakes. Kinda funny if you have a three on the tree they will make you drive it as they sit passenger.

 

[00gyrhed]

emissions can be a mess. inspectors rarely have any idea what actually came on your truck heck they don't even know all the safety laws, they usually have no idea about inspections. A lot of states that actually check emmissions have exemptions for older vehicles, sometimes it 25 years, 30 years, or in the case of CA they cut it off at 1975 when catalytic converters were first required.

I put EFI on my Bronco and I had one inspector ask me if my 71 came with it. I had another tell me I had to have all the 87 pollution controls on it including the cat.

TX doesn't require emmissins inspection for vehilcles over 25 years old, so I just took it to another inspector.

I fuel inject a 350 chevy in a 73 Jeep when 1990.so I had several years of having to dodge emmissions inspections. One thing I learned (at least back then) was that the cat was a chasis device and followed the chasis while egr, and smog pumps followed te engine. so I went and found an 87 firebird in the yard and machine the impellor off the smog pump making a big idler pully that looked like a smog pump, and a blanked off EGR. SInce these inspectors usualy have no idea where vacuum lines run I just plugged a buch of tubing with pieces i cut off a nail and then just routed them all over the engine.

At the time an 87 had a visual inspection and idle test only. The block was a 73. injection was 87, and chasis was 73. I never knew what the inspector was going to require but after i faked the emmisssion equipment I never had any more problems.he EFI ran so clean at idle it didn't need all the other stuff to meet 87 standards, so even if i got hoked up i would still pass.

i now go to a place that doesn't even open the hood as long as the brakes work, and I have good brakes.

BASICALLY DON'T PAY ANY ATTENTION TO ANYONE HERE UNLES THEY HAVE EXPERIENCE IN YOUR STATE, CITY, COUNTY. here for instance only a few counties require emissions testing. the rural counties only do a safety inspection.

 

[dlong]

I bought a 73 back in March with a 302. I changed the carb to a Holley TA. It came with headers, dual pipes and glass packs. Had it smogged here in Vegas with no issues. In 73 catalytic converter were not installed.

 

[kholding]

Thanks everyone. I appreciate the help.

 

[Viperwolf1]

It's all who ya know. And over here, you got yer favoritism.

Taking advantage of classic plate laws has it's advantages, like no more e-tests.

 

[crsman2]

Washington doesn't require any tests on cars older than 25 years either.

 

[73stallion]

i don't think converters were standard til '75.

 

[gbbronco]

Here In Al run what you want to.

 

[stock1970]

kansas rocks.. they just check the vin on the frame when you bring into the state for plates, then that is it, no inspections, no bumper height laws, no body lift limits, no frame height limits, no suspension lift limits. .. woops wait.. vehicles cannot exceed 102 inches wide, 14 feet tall and 45 feet long, so i guess there is a limit.. lol . they dont even make any reference to wheels.. guess beadlocks are ok then.. no laws on steering system.. kansas does not require emissions testing..

 

[Viperwolf1]

It's funny that states without vehicle emissions testing don't seem to have problems with smog.

 

[NYLES]

It's funny that states without vehicle emissions testing don't seem to have problems with smog.

your right! I could run a top fuel funny motor in mine, nobody would care!

 

[00gyrhed]

Not funny the EPA wastes our money

It's funny that states without vehicle emissions testing don't seem to have problems with smog.

The fed has been threatening the Dallas Fort worth area with sanctions and has even talked about limiting us to a 4 day work week due to Ozone levels. Funny thing some of the hi8ghest readings were up way north of all the real traffic. and sometimes even peaked on Sundays when traffic should be lower. Of course the EPA said it was due to our prevailing summer winds from the SSE blowing it up from that terribly polluted downtown Dallas. Some one with a brain finally took a look at their monitors and found that a large percentage of the were located over asphalt roads, parking lots and rooves. Hot sun on asphalt = Ozone production. NOT A CAR PROBLEM.

The fed's emmission requirements are all in ppm. Basically the percentage of pollutants in the exhaust. We have been burdened with smog pumps for years. But di you know that before catalytic converters were put on cars they actually increased the pound of pollutants given off by a car per MILE?
The auto makers were basically pumping air into the tailpipe to dilute tje exhaust stream to meet the ppm requirements, under the guise of adding air to the exhaust to promote burning of unburned hydrocarbons in the exhaust stream. Their dirty little secret was that it didn't do that at all. It also caused the engines to burn more gas per MILE wich means they spewed out more pounds of pollutants per mile even though the ppm was less than federally mandated.

Even now with EFI systems being what they are the use of the catalytic converter is questionable. Smog pumps do add air into the cat and the high temperatures inside the cat MAY promote more complete combustion. I have been told that the cats and smog are only in place because the fed requires that auto makers gaurantee the vehicles will meet the standard after 100K miles even if the owner does NO maintenance.

Case in point.

A buddy had a 96 F250 that due to a quirk in the TX laws was only required to have a visual inspection of the emmission system and a safety inspection. At about 100K miles the smog pump locked up. He gutted and put new bearings in it and basically turned it into an idler pulley. He says he actually intended to put a new one in when he had the time and the parts store was open. About 100K miles later, his son came home complaining that the transmission was going out again so we went and drove it. The cat was stopped up. Maybe due to not having the airflow from the smog pump. well it was after 9 and ther was no place to buy a new one so we just took the cat down and knocked out the catalyst and then put the shell back. It appears to be stock. The surprise came when an inspector that didn't know the inspection law put it on the dynometer even though its gross vehicle wieght was over the dynometers rating. The fifteen year old, 200K+ 460 put out numbers equal to my fully factory smog equipped 2005 Chevy, and in fact it would have passsed the 2005 Standards. Gas milage inreased 2 MPG across the board and seat of the pants HP did as well. Even with 280,000 miles it has more HP availible than it did new.

I doubt this would happen on a little 4 banger or other engine that had to work hard to get a vehicle down the road. But the big 460 and all its torque doesn't work hard until you put a ton on the bed AND pull 10,000#s.

EFI is a wounderful thing.

Sorry for running off on a tangent but the EPA makes me almost as mad as the BATF.

 

[77BroncoSport]

I have to turn my carb down so it will barely stay running to pass emissions for some reason. Advice from Emissions Plus in Sandy, UT by the owner, who is an EB owner as well and where I happen to get all my emissions done.

 

[DirtDonk]

It's funny that states without vehicle emissions testing don't seem to have problems with smog.

That's putting the cart before the horse Phil. They probably don't have testing because they don't have as big a smog problem.
We didn't have any smog to talk about when we only had 500-thousand cars on the road either. It takes time and a lot of them to get where some of us are today.
Smog occurs naturally too, but it doesn't help when you add tens of millions of cylinders burning up hydrocarbons, and the heat generated by each vehicle to the mix. All that heat from our radiators goes somewhere, and it doesn't go away without changing the surrounding temps.

And when you've got close to 30 million cars sharing that road (like we do here in CA), and you have valleys and mountains and weather, you get lots of smog.
We were already knee-deep in crappy air BEFORE the smog laws started coming forth.
When you start dying of exposure to it, it only makes sense to try to minimize at least some of it, any way you can.

Personally, I have doubts that we'd have the engines we have in new trucks now, or 600 horsepower cars that run on pump gas and put fewer pollutants in the air than our EB's did, available to the general public if it hadn't been for the manufacturers trying to make things cleaner and safer and more reliable and having to go longer between oil changes and tune-ups. All due to legislation that made them think in that direction.
Anybody remember when safety glass and seat belts weren't even available? When a 4bbl Quadrajet was the height of efficiency?

Sure, things would have improved eventually (I think?). The deteriorating quality of air we had to breathe just accelerated that fact. Left to us, we've proven time and time again we'd take the cheaper way out if given a choice.
Can you say carburetors and points ignitions?
The changes just happened sooner because even people that didn't work in a coal mine or fiberglass factory were dying of diseases of the lungs before our eyes. And those mountains that were only 3 miles away were disappearing behind a dense cloud of brown. Take a trip down I-210 sometime, and look up into the San Gabriels. If you can.

Deaths due to pollution are still happening in places of course, even though cars are improving. In Long Beach they're finding scads of folks dying of cancer and other lung diseases. Just their luck they happen to be surrounded by some of the busiest freeways in the country and up against chemical refineries.
So not just cars in this case, but also the factories and refineries in their neighborhoods. Not sure what to do about that though. Seems to me it's just poor planning on the part of the cities, rather than simply the "fault" of the factories. Here again though, they can burn cleaner, if forced to. Not usually going to happen on their own accord though. Always has to be legislated into existence, with the associated increased operating costs.
Just like cars.

Yep, we need more houses and a larger tax base anytime we want to grow a city. And we need factories and other businesses to support that and a better lifestyle. But after all these years, you'd think it'd be a no-brainer to not build new homes right up to the refinery's fence practically.
We gotta have the oil and petro-chemicals. It's just a bitch when we have to keep building homes next to old plants, or new plants next to the homes. Guess that's where the phrase "time to move to the hills!" comes in for some city folk.

So while I have no jealousy at all about your lack of smog laws in OK, KS or AL, I'm glad we've had them here for 45 years now.
I think when you have 30.5 million cars on the road, vs 1.5 (or 1.3 for Kansas) in the whole state, it makes a big difference on how you have to deal with it.
Our neighbors likely have to deal with some of our crap too already I bet. So maybe it's a good thing we fight it here, if just for that. Wouldn't surprise me a bit to find out that Nevada, Arizona, Utah and others get to breathe what we make here and gets blown their way.

I'm hopeful that, with your populations and general geography, you guys that live in smog-free (or testing-free at least) states can stay that way.
Hate to see you go through what we've had to. Still though, I think it's been for the better.
Bigger problems sometimes need bigger solutions.

And stop wishing for that earthquake to drop us into the ocean! That's not really a viable solution. %)

Paul

 

[VT_Don]

re: "BASICALLY DON'T PAY ANY ATTENTION TO ANYONE HERE UNLES THEY HAVE EXPERIENCE IN YOUR STATE, CITY, COUNTY."

Amen to that.