The catalytic converter conspiracy

reply to post by LooseLipsSinkShips


Well, the Ruhrgebiet has many "Environment Zones" the so called "Umweltzone". Your car has to be very clean in order to become a green sticker.
Here the signs and stickers:
www.google.com...:defficial&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=de&tab=wi

Originally posted by Regenstorm
reply to post by LooseLipsSinkShips

 

Well, the Ruhrgebiet has many "Environment Zones" the so called "Umweltzone". Your car has to be very clean in order to become a green sticker.
Here the signs and stickers:
www.google.com...:de

fficial&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=de&tab=wi

That's something I just learned thanks to you and I think it is a great thing to do. It's just that the reason why America is so polluted is because it is such a young country and it grew up with the Automobile while most other countries grew up with the horse or camel.

I'm replying to several posts in this one. First to PplVSNWO I think the 403 olds would be a decent CNG platform. Secondly environmental conditions can, and are pretty much accounted for in good tuning algorithms enough so that only the most extreme condtions affect perfomance overly much. Which leads into comparing America, and Germany as far as climate is concerned what works over there should logically work over here. We have the same partial pressures of atmospheric gas planet wide last I checked. It is a cultural issue as was mentioned.

Next to Unlimiteddisaster, I think you're a little rusty on your tuning nomenclature too. Open loop condition only happens at cold start for a minute or two, and at close to WOT. It also only takes the lambda (O2) calc. out of it's algorithms. As far as my presumtions being based on not enough extensive knowledge of how to properly tune. Well... that is most certainly not the case. As mentioned I have set up stand alone management systems. We're not talking modifying an existing OBD system. We're talking soldered the PCB board up, loaded a custom written OS, and then started tuning from scratch, nothing to start with. Based all the tables on how the engine performed per 5 gas analyzer, and dyno output from idle to 6000 RPM. As far as an OBD I, II, or CAN system not targeting 14.7:1 all the time that is untrue. If it is in closed loop 14.7:1 is target AFR so much so it even has it's own special term, Lambda, greek for change, specifying the amount the initial calcs need to change to hit target 14.7:1. If the engine is operating in open loop it does target a little richer than lambda1 and is expressed in % of lambda1 so it's easier to program. As far as richer burn being protective. It is in WOT conditions, not part throttle. At part throttle leaner conditions are just as safe yet more efficient, I have hundreds of thousands of combine engine miles to prove it. Mechanics in my area can tell an engine I have tuned when they pull it down for maintenance because the guts are clean, clean, clean.

Lastly even though our car's computers are left overs from the 60s, and 70s as far as language, and are maybe 80s to early 90s cold cuts for processors. They still have a fast enough processor speed, and our newest sensors are sensitive enough to demonstrate VERY tight control of engine parameters. Sure it's not 100% perfect all the time, and it never will be, but it's a darn lot more accurate than they would have you believe. Take for example a wideband O2 sensor. It can sense and report the varying AFR of an engine under acceleration so accurately that I could tell you with a very narrow margin of error what the exact AFR was every 10 RPM step. That's during accel when the AFR is the hardest to manage. Managing an engine with an ultra lean burn heuristic takes more time thinking on the part of the tuner, and you have to think differently owing to which side of the AFR curve you are on. On the rich side, leaner produces a hotter EGT, but after about 18:1 you flip to the other side of the bell curve, and it's exactly bacwards, and you can quench combustion temps with air abundance, and thus protect the engine. Yes if you go just a tiny, tiny bit too far you get a flame out, but it dosn't hurt the engine, and adds an almost insignificant amount to the emissions as it rarely happens if tuned well. The lean side of the curve is very, very steep, and precise control is a must, but off the shelf modern components are already capable of pulling it off. The car's PCM is already fast enough to make the changes in time. It's just not the auto industries paradigm of thought. Except in the case of European extreme low emissions vehicles. Guess what?! Their tuning method is exactly what I am describing, exactly what Ford, and Chrysler discovered, but were too chicken s#1t to implement, and exactly what I have been doing for over 5 years, and my engineer buddies have been doing for nearly 15 years. Spit out the Detroit petrol flavored cool aid, and think a new thought. The way we aren't doing it is not only just not the best way, it isn't even a very good way. It was OK 10-15 years ago today it's just stupid. If small time engineers with limited resources, and shallow pockets can build stuff with what's available on the internet, at the parts store, and what we can fabricate with a decent CNC machine, and we can blow what the mainstream auto industry spits out by a large margin (chasm would be a better term). What could Detroit, or Tokyo do with tens of millions if they WANTED to. They don't WANT to, that's the point. Do I think they are dumb, and I just figured out what the big boys couldn't, no. They know better, they just can't let it get out that they know better. Then there would be certain expectations of them that doesn't fit their business model.

reply to post by Binder


Thanks for the great thread
I always wondered how 'cats' work, now I definately think they are rather impractical for our modern, more fuel efficient cars.

I'm using a A & B catalytic converter and it exposes the the exhaust gases to as much catalyst as possible which breaks them down to non-toxic forms.

reply to post by Michael Foster


High performance cats do help a bit with outflow, but it is still an unnecessary, and unfortunately legally required, obstruction. A plasma vortex reformer would reduce emissions far below what even a catalytic converter would, and reclaim heat energy to pre-process the fuel for the engine making vastly more efficient use of the fuel. They are much cheaper, and easier to build than a catalytic converter, and would do the same job better by several orders of magnitude. They require no special alloys or materials like a catalytic, and they improve fuel consumption 10 fold while reducing emissions to practically zero. They are however, in America anyway, highly illegal. Coincidence? I'm sure Al Gore just hasn't heard of them yet. That's it.

I had a truck that started having problems with horsepower.
A few weeks later doing some offloading i knocked the muffler off and damaged it.
When i went to put a new turbo muffler on a couple days later i found the old muffler full of the cat honeycomb that had broken up and been blown from the cat into the muffler.
I never replaced the cat but never had a problem passing smog with a empty cat

Years before i had a car with one of the old cats with the pellets in it.
One day while working under the car i noticed that there was a plug missing from the cat and all the pellets were gone.
found a plug to fill the hole and it passed every time.

Now in Calif they check to make sure you have the right cat converter on the car.
some people have taken the converter from a large car like one with a large block engine and put them on a small car with a 4 or 6 cylinder. this way the cat never gets hot or reduces the exhaust flow.
plus some shops have put the wrong cats on cars that do not work right.

I don't worry with my car now as a have a 1974 mercedes that does not need to be smogged and have taken the air pump belt off.

reply to post by ANNED


I have a '76 IHC Scout II, it doesn't require a cat either. I can set the carb, and timing just right. Do an immediate 5 gas analyzer test, and it will pass even todays standards. Of course as soon as conditions change a bit it's too rich or too lean, but the delivery system is capable of producing a mixture close enough to stoichiometric to satisfy modern emissions standards. The problem is that it can't adapt to changes in conditions. On Board Diagnostics systems (OBD) can adapt, and have been in use since the 80s. They are now very sophisticated, and adapt extremely quickly. If a carby can be set to produce acceptable emissions without a catalytic converter then a cat on a modern vehicle is truly pointless.

Thanks for the info!

a reply to: Binder

Why not have a separate gas tank for the cat?