ECUTek announces upcoming changes for USDM ROMs for all the cars they support.

Javelin said:

z31maniac said:

Javelin said:

In the days of multiple manufacturers making 700+ HP emissions legal cars, why would you remove emissions equipment anyways? It's not costing you any power. 

I don't drive a supercharged V8.

In a 2800 lb car ~35 whp is a noticeable jump. And E85 is a big part of that equation.

E85 does not require you to remove the emissions though. 

Nope but on this particular platform catted headers (which I'm not even sure if the catted headers use CARB compliant cats and if they don't, they would still be illegal), tend to make ~10-12 whp LESS than catless headers. 

Error404 said:

Very off-topic but I'd love to know more about what is being done about cargo ships that are burning bunker fuel. I find it very hard to care about my rarely driven, no emissions fun car compared to constantly running industry. 

That has been addressed for about 10 years now.  Now, most ships have scrubbers as well as running cleaner fuel than bunker fuel.  It's also a worldwide treaty, not just EPA regulations.

Heck, some new ships will be LNG.  

DirtyBird222 said:

EPA cracking down on a niche as if we are the problem is comical. Maybe they should focus on exporting more of the industrial pollution to China to kill off our industrial base even more. 

Why do you assume they are not addressing industrial emissions?  And why do you also assume China isn't?  

And why should we ignore laws?  That makes even less sense.  Letting a "niche" by isn't exactly good for those companies that actually live by the laws.  That harms companies like Flyn Miata who actually meet the rules.

z31maniac said:

Javelin said:

z31maniac said:

Javelin said:

In the days of multiple manufacturers making 700+ HP emissions legal cars, why would you remove emissions equipment anyways? It's not costing you any power. 

I don't drive a supercharged V8.

In a 2800 lb car ~35 whp is a noticeable jump. And E85 is a big part of that equation.

E85 does not require you to remove the emissions though. 

Nope but on this particular platform catted headers (which I'm not even sure if the catted headers use CARB compliant cats and if they don't, they would still be illegal), tend to make ~10-12 whp LESS than catless headers. 

Watch:

That's a 500+ HP, 10-second car with forced induction that made *less* HP without a cat than with one. I highly, highly doubt any claims about cats hurting horsepower.

I'm not sure it matters how cats impact performance.  If you want 35 more hp, you can buy it that way in OEM form or buy the upgrades from someone who is developing kits to be EPA legal.

I'm honestly surprised that any significant company would've invested in developing illegal software or hardware after the EPA started enforcing the law a couple of years ago. It just seems like they're spending money to develop a product they won't be able to sell while simultaneously begging to get fined a bunch of money too.

If you want to have open modification ability with your powertrain, you need to buy a '75 or older vehicle. Otherwise you're limited in what you can modify or tune. That's just the way it is now.

The only time I don't recommend running a cat is when you are using spark cut launch control/shift cut. They don't last so long.

It's easy enough to set your car up to drop the cat for that, and replace it, if the car does street time. I have yet to see a cat efficency code cause limp or performance difference, only CEL. 

GameboyRMH said:

Toyman! said:

This is why I bought the hardware and software for the VW right after I bought it. All of the delete parts are on the shelf and all the software is on the programmer in case they become necessary.

Make sure you have any PC software you need as well, from the right time period...

Good point. All of my tuning stuff is on an old Thinkpad. It should survive as long as the car does. 

STM317 said:

I'm honestly surprised that any significant company would've invested in developing illegal software or hardware after the EPA started enforcing the law a couple of years ago. It just seems like they're spending money to develop a product they won't be able to sell while simultaneously begging to get fined a bunch of money too.

If you want to have open modification ability with your powertrain, you need to buy a '75 or older vehicle. Otherwise you're limited in what you can modify or tune. That's just the way it is now.

I'm casually looking for a deal on a 64-67 GM A-body for this reason.  Modern enough suspension with lots of aftermarket, and it predates the clean air act.

Toyman! said:

GameboyRMH said:

Toyman! said:

This is why I bought the hardware and software for the VW right after I bought it. All of the delete parts are on the shelf and all the software is on the programmer in case they become necessary.

Make sure you have any PC software you need as well, from the right time period...

Good point. All of my tuning stuff is on an old Thinkpad. It should survive as long as the car does. 

 

You can put it all in to a virtual machine, prevent the guest's BIOS from syncing time with the host, and loop the network connection back so it can't talk to anything.  That way if the license is time-sensitive, you won't have to worry about running past that point.  I also keep a "golden" copy of the VM so that if I screw it up in any way I can go back in time.  Not having any security patches shouldn't be a serious problem since it's completely isolated.  You can even completely remove the virtual NIC as long as the software doesn't use the hardware address of the network card to ensure that it's running on the right computer for licensing purposes.  Once you've got that golden image saved off, you can run it as a guest on modern hardware so that if the Thinkpad gets damaged or anything you're still able to use your tools on a replacement.  I've had to do that with both Xentry/DAS and WIS.

On the topic at hand, it doesn't really surprise me.  Folks that want to do that sort of tuning are a minority, so it's fairly easy to lump everybody in with the coal rollers and give it a good dose of "for the children" and "safety" and "carbon something something".  Everybody will just shrug and assume that it isn't something that will affect them at all and it might irritate that guy in the neighborhood with the loud muffler so why bother worrying about it. 

It's also worth pointing out that regulations like that, in general, really do serve as a subsidy for the larger incumbent businesses.  A firm that is large enough to have the resources to be able to comply with stringent regulations will absolutely encourage the enforcement because it will create a barrier-to-entry for their competitors by baking in a lot of cost.

On the other, other hand, though, I find the angst about this kind of thing to be akin to the people that were freaking out about the 1099-K changes.  You were already supposed to be not turning the CEL off and removing emissions components.  That's never been okay.  What we're mad about is that we used to be able to get away with breaking the rules and now you're going to make us follow them.

In reply to wae :

Apparently people need to be reminded that the ignoring of enforcement was a privilege that was abused to the point that it had to stop.  The core problem being that the "off road use only" was seen on the road.  A lot.

It's not as if the people working at the EPA hate cars and don't modify their own cars- they do.  More than people think, as I see it.  I know of drag racers, a turbo miata conversion, and more than one challenge car attempt (one that made it).  

Abuse lead to complaints from the public, which forced enforcement of the rules.  It's pretty simple.

STM317 said:

I'm honestly surprised that any significant company would've invested in developing illegal software or hardware after the EPA started enforcing the law a couple of years ago. It just seems like they're spending money to develop a product they won't be able to sell while simultaneously begging to get fined a bunch of money too.

If you want to have open modification ability with your powertrain, you need to buy a '75 or older vehicle. Otherwise you're limited in what you can modify or tune. That's just the way it is now.

I think this is what bums me out a bit, some of the emissions equipment on older cars are long out of production. As they fail does that mean the only path is scrap for them?  My fleet of nostalgia from the 80's and 90's is getting harder and harder to keep up and I worry about the day they won't be "legal" anymore.

In reply to dclafleur :

I thought that federally, a car is exempt from EPA standards once it's 21 years old? That's what allows us to bring in imports from Japan, which were never EPA certified. While removal of an emissions system might not be allowed (though, if the car is exempt then would it really matter anyway?), it would seem to me that a non-functional one would be totally fine as long as you don't live in a CARB state. But I might be very, very wrong.

In reply to AMiataCalledSteve :

You may be thinking of the NHTSA 25 year exemption on safety equipment. I don't know of an EPA one. In fact, a friend got a modified Integrale road legal in California by essentially going through the entire EO process. Makes sense for a $100k car, not so much for a $5k one. 

In reply to dclafleur :

For pretty much all pre OBDII cars, you can use generic replacements, as there are a ton of them that have EOs.  Especially for that era of cars - which is most of the era you are talking about.

BUT- that being said, YOU  removing the catalyst being illegal is very dependent on the state you live in- you will never get a knock on the door from the EPA.  It's the companies that are selling the parts who have to go through the process to get EOs.  And if they don't, they face fines.

In reply to alfadriver :

Other than CA, I think only NY and CO (and one other that escapes me) require the use of EO'd cats. Even then, it's for cars sold in the 21st century (roughly). We can't ship federal cats for the appropriate years  there. 

Keith Tanner said:

In reply to AMiataCalledSteve :

You may be thinking of the NHTSA 25 year exemption on safety equipment. I don't know of an EPA one. In fact, a friend got a modified Integrale road legal in California by essentially going through the entire EO process. Makes sense for a $100k car, not so much for a $5k one. 

If you look in the first document linked on this page, the section under "Exclusions" mentions that vehicles over 21 years are exempt. The way I interpret it is that they have to be fitted with the original engine, though.

The combo of the NHTSA 25 year exemption and the EPA 21 year exemption is what lets you bring all these cars legally into the country.

However - and that's where your friend got caught out - they EPA exemption doesn't mean the vehicle is exempted from local (state) emissions laws, so if a car has to pass an emissions test to be legal, it has to pass. California being the poster child for that.

Other states don't seem to care as much, with "vaguely looks like a VIN, here's a title and registration" FL being the top of that list.

z31maniac said:

Keith Tanner said:

I'm surprised it took this long, honestly.

Read carefully, though. It's not that they're removing the ability to tune vehicles, they're removing the ability to mess with the emissions system and suppress trouble codes. That's not the same thing. Want to put on a header? Go for it. Want to remove a cat to put on a header and remove the resulting error codes? No.

A good tuner and a properly designed header should still allow a BRZ to run E85 and a header. It is possible to increase output legally, it just takes more effort and skill than it used to. 

 

The number of tuned vehicles in the US is fairly significant. The Bully Dog lawsuit involved a third of a million vehicles alone.

333,000 out of 280,000,000 doesn't really seem that significant. 

But yes, I realize it essentially just means you can't do anything that would defeat a Check Engine Light. But on many platforms, removing the 2nd O2 sensor or maybe the EVAP was exactly how they used the input for the E85 sensor. 

 Really.   No spare inputs at all?

Maybe I am jaded by GM's ability to future-proof and have way more inputs and outputs than strictly necessary, just so they can use one part number for everything...