Diesel Tuner Faces Year in Prison

Opti said:

In reply to Tk8398 :

A good example of this is the 6.0/6.4 which is generally considered on of the least reliable modern big diesels in passenger trucks. In busses where they are exempt from emissions, reports are these things are workhorses and very hard to kill

Buses are not exempt from emissions at all. They'd have to pass the same "on highway, heavy duty" tests as an HD pickup. But it's pretty likely that the bus engine is tuned in a way that emphasizes area under the curve, fuel efficiency, and/or longevity rather than just focusing on peak numbers that can be bragged about in a commercial.

For example, the current Cummins 6.7 from a Ram truck has 370hp and up to 1000ft-lbs. The same basic 6.7 for a bus is more likely to have ~280hp/550 ft-lbs.

Opti said:

Im not saying its stopping them, Im saying they are wasting resources that can reallocated for things that might actually make a difference. Which should be their goal.

What would your plan be to achieve a larger net benefit for the same or less $?

Opti said:

In reply to CrustyRedXpress :

We already have a 93% compliance, now we are chasing such a small population the effects will be immaterial, if we can actually get them off the road. With fining this guy and throwing him in jail, we didnt actually take an deleted diesels off the road. Maybe from a purely theoretical position you can say "now its hard to get parts," but that hasnt worked for other things the government went after like drugs, and I (like pretty much everyone else) can still get parts.

Im not saying its stopping them, Im saying they are wasting resources that can reallocated for things that might actually make a difference. Which should be their goal.

Hang on, forgive me if I'm wrong, but let's substitute breaking emissions laws for murder in your reply.  If someone murders their neighbor the Police don't say, oh, you murdered Bob, but as Bob is dead it's too late to save him so we'll let you go.

Actually to take this admittedly absurd argument further, you could say they fined him for the original murder, then he changed his name to fool the authorities that it wasn't the same guy who carried on murdering people.

Opti said:

I agree 100% with the statement the goal is to dis-incentivize the majority. I take issue with the current actions because we've already done that. If there are about 8 million diesel passenger vehicles on the road, and 550K have been deleted, we have about a 93% compliance rate. I think spending much resources or time after that is a waste and we are long past the law of diminishing returns.

Stats problem here. Diesels have not always had much in the way of emissions controls until relatively recently. You can't delete what's not there. When the EPA is looking at the number of deleted vehicles, they are looking at the number of vehicles that have controls that CAN be deleted. I've seen that number in the studies, don't have time right now to dig it up again. But it's a much higher percentage when expressed that way, and more accurate when it comes to compliance numbers.

...

I wouldnt pay a guy to sit outside and swat mosquitos one at a time. At the end of the day he may tell me I swatted 100 mosquitos, but if he didnt make a difference in the number of times I got bit, its a complete waste of resources and time.

And FYI, my rural region has a mosquito abatement program by addressing where the mosquitos breed :)

In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :

Let me correct your analogy to more accurately reflect my argument. Someone murders their neighbor. The police go after the knife manufacturer, then say knives are harder to get so there is less murder. The murderer (/polluter) hasnt been effected at all, he can buy a knife from someone else.

It seems as though you took me saying these actions are dumb, as defending Spartan. Im not. That guy obviously picked a fight over the course of 5 years and lost.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Yes you can use a smaller population and come out with a larger percentage. The numbers ive seen for capable and deleted is 15%. You still have the overwhelming majority compliant, and playing with statistics, doesnt change the number of deleted diesels. Its still 550K trucks, driven by people who are indifferent to breaking the law, and face no consequences based on the current process.

Does your mosquito abatement program work? I would bet it does. I dont consider throwing Spartan in jail, going after the breeding ground. It made news and the EPA has someone they can parade around and say look at all the good we did, while consumers just move on to the next guy that will sell it to them. My mosquito analogy was a response to the question how many deleted diesels to get off the road? I was trying to say I dont care how many deleted diesels they get off the road, I care how much they reduce pollution.

Would you rather have 550K deleted diesels on the road and less NOx in the air, or effectively the same amount of NOx in the air but a few less deleted diesels?

Opti said:

Would you rather have 550K deleted diesels on the road and less NOx in the air, or effectively the same amount of NOx in the air but a few less deleted diesels?

How would you go about achieving this? What's the alternative that you're suggesting that would bring down total emissions for  a smaller investment?

I'd be interested in vehicle emissions requirements having a sunset some number of years following the year of manufacture.  I hate the idea of deleting and tuning trucks that have properly function emissions systems, but the systems are so complicated that they effectively total a truck if major repairs are required.  Is the process of scrapping the old truck and manufacturing a new one more or less harmful to the environment than running the old truck without emissions equipment for a few more years?  I don't know if it's possible to get honest numbers to answer that question, but I think it is worth consideration.

I don't know if the mosquito program works around here, I live too far away from the breeding areas and they've never skipped a year to prove how well it's working :) But I do think that going after the vendors is the same as going after the breeding grounds. Going after the breeding grounds doesn't get rid of the mosquitos that are out there now, but it does mean there will be fewer mosquitos in the future.  Not zero mosquitoes as there are always more breeding grounds, but fewer.

Your guy slapping one mosquito at a time is the equivalent of trying to catch modified trucks instead of trying to remove the source. It might seem like you're getting a lot done but over the long term it has had very little effect.

It's a pretty good analogy, really.

I haven't seen the need to defeat or remove the emissions systems in any of the vehicles I currently have on the road. They're all 2003 or later. The newest one makes the most HP per liter, gets the best gas mileage, is the least polluting vehicle and may be the most fun to drive on the street. The 1993 BMW isn't going to have the emissions systems on it defeated or removed either, because, well, while they're really primitive, they're better than nothing for once I do get it back on the road.

We've said it before: We're in a Golden Age of performance right now. 

 

tuna55 said:

alfadriver said:

Why do people think the EPA is outside the Constitution?  They are bound like every other government thing. They are part of the Executive branch and have been given authorization to write laws by congress. That's how it works. 
Maybe because they win far more challenges than they lose?  Dunno. What that tells me is that they have a strong understanding of their bounds. In this case, it's about their bounds to go after companies, but not the customers. 
As for maritime rules, there are some pretty stringent treaties that cover maritime emissions outside of national boundaries. 
And there are tons of rules bounding emissions from stationary places, too. We are light years better than when I was a kid in the 70's - and that took a system approach as opposed to just looking at one thing. 
 

IMHO, the recent debate over CO2 is political vs science. Which it has been for +30 years in the US. There are real reasons that the international community is so frustrated with the US on that. 

We have disagreed on this topic before and we won't settle it now. I don't suppose it has much bearing on this anyway. Personally I believe that the EPA should have clearly bounded authority enumerated in the constitution. I'm a constitutionalist. This would also make the power unable to be swayed by the SCOTUS or the POTUS in either direction.

The founders obviously understood that a single static document shouldn't be the final and only word on issues they couldn't possibly anticipate 300 years in the future.  That's why we have a legislative process. The purpose of the Constitution is limit the role of government, not to give us explicit rights. 

In reply to STM317 :

If I ever said it, I didnt mean smaller investment. Id rather allocate resources on something that will work, then waste resources on something that wont.

For something to be a bad idea you dont have to have a better idea. Sometimes the better solution is to just not do that something. To take Adrian's example, murder.

If you asked me what Id do, then we get into politics and my feelings on the government and Ill avoid that. So lets say I was mostly constrained by status quo, and my goal was to reduce emissions. Ive been told on here in the past deleted diesels are such a problem because of NOx not necessarily carbon. According to the chart posted electricity generation accounts for 25% of our emissions, and outsized polluter is coal plant, especially in NOx. A real feasible solution would be to move coal to natural gas. Much cleaner (I believe an 1/8th the amount of NOx), almost as efficient and energy dense. Plus electric demand will only go up with electric cars and all our gadgets, which without intervention could lead to electricity generation being a much larger polluter. 

In reply to tuna55 :

So then you must want to pull back on the police and FBI, then, since neither of them are mentioned in the constitution, either. And both have the power of the death sentence.  The worst the EPA can do is fine and prison. 

In reply to Opti :

The coal industry has more powerful lobbies. 
 

But why do you assume that coal plants are not covered and restricted?  You seem to imply that sectors are not covered very well- they are. And there are aspects of the EPA that do oversee them and are not the same people as mobile source oversight. The EPA covered and oversights everything all the time. 
These guys repeatedly broke the law, very blatantly. If your neighbor vandalized your property but is a small part of a whole city wide vandalism thing, should they be let off for being small?

It sends a message. Don't sell kits to defeat emissions or you will go to jail. 

It doesn't get the kits sold taken out of circulation, it tells those on the cusp of legality, don't sell those kits, the financial and incarceration risk is too great.

We can debate it all day, but if the EPA and IRS tell you to stop doing something, probably a good idea to stop.

In reply to alfadriver :

I didnt say this guy should be let off, I think he obviously picked a fight and lost. I said if the goal is to materially reduce pollution, this isnt helping and is a waste.

Opti said:

In reply to STM317 :

If I ever said it, I didnt mean smaller investment. Id rather allocate resources on something that will work, then waste resources on something that wont.

For something to be a bad idea you dont have to have a better idea. Sometimes the better solution is to just not do that something. To take Adrian's example, murder.

If you asked me what Id do, then we get into politics and my feelings on the government and Ill avoid that. So lets say I was mostly constrained by status quo, and my goal was to reduce emissions. Ive been told on here in the past deleted diesels are such a problem because of NOx not necessarily carbon. According to the chart posted electricity generation accounts for 25% of our emissions, and outsized polluter is coal plant, especially in NOx. A real feasible solution would be to move coal to natural gas. Much cleaner (I believe an 1/8th the amount of NOx), almost as efficient and energy dense. Plus electric demand will only go up with electric cars and all our gadgets, which without intervention could lead to electricity generation being a much larger polluter. 

If you're going to claim that the current process is ineffective and wasteful, then you should probably have a better option. Or at least provide some sort of evidence to back up your point. The regulations in place have had a very clear and measurable positive impact on air quality whether anybody feels like they're worthwhile or not. This data really cannot be questioned at this point. If you want the penalization process to be more efficient that's fine, but you should suggest a better alternative. Doing nothing is not an option. Ignoring the largest sources of NOx and GHGs in the US to solely chase improvements in the energy sector isn't going to happen. They're both under scrutiny right now. It's not like they're ignoring power generation to solely focus on transportation.

Opti said:

In reply to Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) :

Let me correct your analogy to more accurately reflect my argument. Someone murders their neighbor. The police go after the knife manufacturer, then say knives are harder to get so there is less murder. The murderer (/polluter) hasnt been effected at all, he can buy a knife from someone else.

It seems as though you took me saying these actions are dumb, as defending Spartan. Im not. That guy obviously picked a fight over the course of 5 years and lost.

Now let me correct you.

You are somehow assuming he murdered with a weapon that wasn't already against the law to manufacture and sell in the United States.   Knives aren't, by definition, illegal to sell to the general public.   The diesel tunes being sold were.   Anyone deciding to "just buy somewhere else" is going to yet another illegal tuner.  Who also can be fined and thrown in jail.

Those fines, if I may say so, also represent at least some return on the investment of investigating and prosecuting the  ̶i̶l̶l̶e̶g̶a̶l̶ ̶w̶e̶a̶p̶o̶n̶s̶  vehicle modifications seller.

In reply to alfadriver :

Why do people think the EPA is outside the Constitution?  They are bound like every other government thing. They are part of the Executive branch and have been given authorization to write laws by congress. That's how it works. 

Maybe because they win far more challenges than they lose?  Dunno. What that tells me is that they have a strong understanding of their bounds. In this case, it's about their bounds to go after companies, but not the customers. 
As for maritime rules, there are some pretty stringent treaties that cover maritime emissions outside of national boundaries. 
And there are tons of rules bounding emissions from stationary places, too. We are light years better than when I was a kid in the 70's - and that took a system approach as opposed to just looking at one thing. 
 

Because they are outside the constitution. As you pointed out, they are part of the executive, not the legislative branch. They are not elected, yet have tremendous power. That is not how it is supposed to work. They write laws, which is supposed to be the responsibility of the legislative branch. Which is comprised of elected representatives that we can vote out. Nobody at the EPA was on a ballot. The legislative branch has increasingly given up it's power to non representative government bureaucracies. It's understandable- the federal government has expanded well beyond it's original intent, and it's unreasonable to expect or even want the legislative branch directly involved in all of these specialized areas. Constitutionally, they should probably have been addressed at the state level. But having 50 different versions of CARB would not be very efficient, so most people are okay with the legislature giving up some of it's power. But it's not absolute, and the recent Supreme Court ruling was a check on an overreach of power. 

IMHO, the recent debate over CO2 is political vs science. Which it has been for +30 years in the US. There are real reasons that the international community is so frustrated with the US on that. 
 

It's always been political, which makes it tougher to sort out the science. Science is supposed to work unfettered by politics, but that is far from the case. Someone earlier pointed out crony capitalism in the oil industry. There is also a lot of crony capitalism in the CO2 industry. That fact that there even is a CO2 industry raises questions for a lot of people. The compete shut down of debate, and labeling people with questions as science deniers doesn't help. The frequently used term "settled science" is not found in science, since the whole purpose of science is to try to challenge and disprove generally accepted theory. Now, that doesn't mean it's wrong, but I can't think of a worse way to gain acceptance. As for the international community- which one? The one that would like the U.S. to ceed it's power and authority? Or the one comprised of much larger contributors that have no intention of making any changes, hoping we destroy our own economy? And there are plenty of reasons for the US to be frustrated with the international community. In my opionion, we need to have an open and honest discussion about all aspects of CO2.  To be clear, I'm not arguing for either side, I don't think there should be a side. There should be quest for the truth. Unfortunately, there seems to be a trend in our society for people who think they are right to "prove" it at all costs, skipping all of the important steps along the way. 

In reply to Boost_Crazy :

One point I would like to point out is that anti science people will pose questions a certain way to lead you to their desired opinion, while innocently saying they are "just asking questions".  

Step 1 in mind control is to sow distrust.  That makes a mind pliable.  Step 2 is not to tell someone how to think, but to lead them into coming to the conclusions that you want them to come to.  That way it feels better, like it is their own idea in the first place.

So, yes, many times "just asking questions" is not quite so innocent.

Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:

My general take on the guy is f--k him. Coal Rollers are dillweeds and anyone who aids and abets them are double-so.

But I have a question -  do those retunes really produce huge mileage gains like his supporters say? I'd think that  rolling coal and efficiency are two very different things.

First, we have to clarify some things (diesel enthusiast myself).  The answer is yes and no.  A retune for logical use like towing or efficiency is highly effective.  A tune to make black clouds is a purposely-invented way to simply make black clouds.  It's like a Carlolina Squat or a plywood spoiler on a K-car.  It's just for show.  Those tunes don't care about MPG, they care about announcing your tiny hootus.

There are many things you can do to a diesel engine for performance.  Some of them make some black smoke, some make more power, some make more MPG.  Others make huge clouds of black smoke.  The thing about a diesel is that it's just air and fuel.

Dad's 04 Dmax has been tuned to make frightening torque... like nearly 1000 at the wheels.  In the fifth position on the rotary switch, it does make some black smoke.  It's a trade-off of getting enough fuel early to add mass and get the turbo spinning sooner.  As soon as there is boost, the black smoke goes away, so it's more like a faint puff instead of an opaque wall of soot.  On the #3 setting, it still makes 850 tq at the wheels and there is no black smoke.  It also easily puts down 24mpg (up from a factory tune that usually nets 19mpg).  So in dad's truck, it has been taken pretty much to the max before coal-rolling and it makes more torque than a saint and gets 20-25% better MPG than stock while doing it.  That is a significant fuel consumption difference.

The way you do that is by introducing more fuel and doing it earlier.  Factory tunes use conservative injection timing for two reasons: 1) NOx emissions, and 2) noise.  Advancing injection timing has pretty impressive effects on MPG because you're making more of your peak cylinder pressures in the critical 12-27 degree ATDC ranges where pressure on the rod has the most torsion on the crank.  Factory timing leaves torque and MPG on the table as a trade-off for NOx compliance.  Doing nothing but adding a few degrees injection advance can get you significant torque and MPG alone.  You can keep going with more advance until you reach a point where the flame front meets the piston before TDC, which not only starts robbing power, but it also tends to make things explode.

The short version is... factory tunes are limited on when they can inject fuel due to NOx, which means your pulsewidth and volume of fuel injected is limited before you cause HC emissions to spike.  Advancing the timing lets you inject more fuel since it has a longer time to burn it before the exhaust valve opens. 

The other factor at play with MPG is driving style (just like any vehicle).  Since most of your driving is "normal," advancing injection timing means you are using more of the BTUs in the fuel you inject (fewer HC out the tailpipe) which means for regular daily driving you're using less right foot to achieve the same motivation.  More of the fuel is releasing its BTUs at peak leverage on the crank, so you need less fuel for the same driving style.

Diesel tuners that don't roll coal will carefully advance timing and add fuel to maximize power, MPG, or both.  Their point is to NOT roll coal because that is both wasted power and MPG.  Dad's 5-position chip is 1) stock tune, 2) towing which adds a small amount of fuel and a couple degrees more advance, 3) economy which adds a bit more advance but no additional fuel, 4) stage 1 race which maxes safe advance and adds more fuel, and 5) stage 2 race which keeps max safe advance and adds as much fuel as it can without spiking EGTs.  Coal rollers' tune might be 1) stock, 2) add fuel, 3) add more fuel, 4) add even more fuel, 5) just dump raw diesel in the intake.  That's an exaggeration, but their tunes are specifically designed to make clouds.

I mostly explained that because you asked, but also because I am VERY tired of diesel myths and misconceptions.  Diesel tuning is one thing.  Yokels rolling coal are douchebag E36 M3sticks and deserve all the jail time they can get.  I do feel the need to delineate between diesel tuning vs coalies.  Coal rollers have tuned their diesels to compensate for their tiny, white-trash hootus.  Responsible diesel tuners have optimized their vehicle for power, MPG, or torque for a logical purpose.  If you pulled up between a bone stock duramax and dad's hopped-up duramax, you wouldn't know the difference.  Its just that people only SEE coal rollers and assume they are the only tuner diesels out there.  Dad's is tuned pretty insane and you would mistake it for a stocker so you wouldn't even think it has a tune.  People see a coal roller and know it's tuned, so they assume all tuners are coalies.

But if anyone conflates all diesel tuners with coal rollers and brodozers, I tend to get a little defensive.  That slippery slope you're all talking about?  Responsible diesel tuners like me and dad are the first thing to get scrutinized.  Your gasoline motorsport will be the very last thing to get discussed by the EPA, so a little education in the quest for solidarity might be an ounce of prevention.

In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :

I agree, if we frame the discussion around the fringes of either side. But that's not what I'm taking about. Of course, the fringes are what get all of the press, so it's easy to get caught up in the extreme of one side battling with the extreme of the other, with no intention of finding the truth. I'm hoping that doesn't apply to the majority of the people. But it doesn't help when a very nuanced topic gets framed as an either/or proposition. Conversely, saying "most people believe this, you are stupid to think anything otherwise" is also a form of control to influence opinion. 

edit-

Also pointing out- when you say anti science people, I hope you are talking about the extreme fringe that are truly anti science, who are not open minded. If you mean it to apply generally to those that question the science- questioning science IS science. That would be like calling someone an anti-protest protester. 

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

I did a quick search to see if there was any good data on the performance of a coal rolling tune Vs. a performance or MPG tune. No luck, but I ran across a lot of people mirroring what you said. I also saw on multiple forums that people asking for coal rolling tunes got about what you would expect of people looking for street races in school zones on this board. It was a very limited search, but backs up the notion that the small minority makes the whole community look bad.