EPA wants to prohibit street car to race car conversions

[RACECAR]

For any other paranoids who may have missed it, or can't read.

Seriously? Paranoid? I know I reacted harshly, but I'm not paranoid. What I got from that was that people who don't have the vast amounts of money like big teams do to go racing were going to be screwed over along with millions of companies and an entire industry practically reduced to massive losses of jobs. I was angry at the time I reacted (and I actually did read the post and have understood it better now), but I was not paranoid. Kinda don't like being lumped in.

 

[Dagger311]

You can petition to have them withdraw the proposal here: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/pe...posal-prohibit-conversion-vehicles-racecars-0

 

[Joey D]

Seriously? Paranoid? I know I reacted harshly, but I'm not paranoid. What I got from that was that people who don't have the vast amounts of money like big teams do to go racing were going to be screwed over along with millions of companies and an entire industry practically reduced to massive losses of jobs. I was angry at the time I reacted (and I actually did read the post and have understood it better now), but I was not paranoid. Kinda don't like being lumped in.

You'll still be able to have a racecar and you'll still be able to buy performance parts. You just won't be able to drive your car on the road if you built it into a racecar and modified the emissions system. You can still modify things like suspension, transmission, tires, etc. on a car without any issue. There will still be a huge aftermarket industry and people will still spend billions on parts for their vehicles since modifications is more than straightpiping something.

All this law is clarifying is that you can't run open headers, catless exhausts, or anything like that on the street, which is how it's already been for years.

 

[Joel]

Keeping this thread bookmarked for the next time "why do you think car guys are uncool?" comes up in a cool wall thread.

 

[niky]

All this law is clarifying is that you can't run open headers, catless exhausts, or anything like that on the street, which is how it's already been for years.

Pretty much how I saw it when I first heard about this move.

And if you do want to run catless, there are always classic cars...

 

[Pupik]

Playing devil's advocate for a moment: forcing competition vehicles to keep emissions equipment intact might be helpful for the "race on Sunday, sell on Monday" mantra. Racing has become largely divergent from actual road-going vehicles so as to have limited similarities, rather than the limited differences between competition and public-use machinery. In another words: that's what the point of manufacturer-based automobile competition was about. If the same clean-air restrictions were added to a racing vehicle, then perhaps the gains could be better appreciated and refined for the "daily drivers".

 

[YSSMAN]

All this law is clarifying is that you can't run open headers, catless exhausts, or anything like that on the street, which is how it's already been for years.

I can't remember where I read the article, but they talked to some guy in charge of one of the various Crapcan series(s), and he pointed out that with a lot of modern cars, it's more damaging to the car to remove the cat, modify the intake and exhaust, and so on, thanks to the various electronic controls on each model. Sure, you can do it, but your car typically won't run well or last long when doing so. It isn't a huge change for a lot of modern Capcan cars, but older stuff will need to be clarified. I'm pretty sure Porsche, Mazda, Aston Martin, and any other provider of turn-key race models will have something to say, too.

 

[Keef]

All this law is clarifying is that you can't run open headers, catless exhausts, or anything like that on the street, which is how it's already been for years.

Maybe in commie states but here in Ohio there are only two counties left that do emissions checks. One of them is in Cleveland. There is no state law requiring it anymore. I've driven blaring-loud cat-less cars for about 8 years now.

Fortunately for me, I do all my fast driving on the street when nobody is looking. I don't go to tracks so there's no way they can say my car is a race car.

 

[TenEightyOne]

There's a lot of knee jerk reactions going on over this and I don't think it's been fully analyzed. It's always been illegal to modify emissions on a street vehicle, so I can't see much changing there.

I agree. As this article suggests in its closing, SEMA might be putting the wrong spin on this.

 

[Joey D]

I can't remember where I read the article, but they talked to some guy in charge of one of the various Crapcan series(s), and he pointed out that with a lot of modern cars, it's more damaging to the car to remove the cat, modify the intake and exhaust, and so on, thanks to the various electronic controls on each model. Sure, you can do it, but your car typically won't run well or last long when doing so. It isn't a huge change for a lot of modern Capcan cars, but older stuff will need to be clarified. I'm pretty sure Porsche, Mazda, Aston Martin, and any other provider of turn-key race models will have something to say, too.

I believe it was on Autoblog the other day since I remember reading that too. Most performance stuff like exhausts and CAI on newer cars don't really do a whole heck of a lot except make a bunch of noise. The only reason I have an exhaust on my truck is to make it sound better, I might have gain a couple of horsepower but I really doubt it.

Maybe in commie states but here in Ohio there are only two counties left that do emissions checks. One of them is in Cleveland. There is no state law requiring it anymore. I've driven blaring-loud cat-less cars for about 8 years now.

Fortunately for me, I do all my fast driving on the street when nobody is looking. I don't go to tracks so there's no way they can say my car is a race car.

Even without emissions testing, it's still considered illegal at the Federal level I believe. We don't have any counties in Michigan that do emission testing, which is why we can register and drive our rally car like a normal car despite having a engine swap and a straight pipe off the header. I know at least removing the cat is illegal.

I agree. As this article suggests in its closing, SEMA might be putting the wrong spin on this.

They definitely are, this isn't the first time SEMA has made it seem like it's the end of the world.

 

[CodeRedR51]

I believe it was on Autoblog the other day since I remember reading that too. Most performance stuff like exhausts and CAI on newer cars don't really do a whole heck of a lot except make a bunch of noise. The only reason I have an exhaust on my truck is to make it sound better, I might have gain a couple of horsepower but I really doubt it.

By themselves they won't do hardly anything, sure. You have to tune the car to take advantage of the extra airflow. Most people don't do that though.

 

[ConnorWolf]

Can anyone out there actually run the numbers to compare emissions from the entire Spec Miata field vs producing and shipping 1 Toyota Prius to the USA??

 

[1241Penguin]

Can anyone out there actually run the numbers to compare emissions from the entire Spec Miata field vs producing and shipping 1 Toyota Prius to the USA??

And the point of that would be to...?

 

[ConnorWolf]

And the point of that would be to...?

To show how little effect club racing has compared to mainstream car production in terms of emissions/pollution?

Stuff we can use to argue for less regulation on budget racing.

 

[niky]

Can anyone out there actually run the numbers to compare emissions from the entire Spec Miata field vs producing and shipping 1 Toyota Prius to the USA??

If you're adding up the production of the Spec Miata racers themselves, the math doesn't work in your favor.

-

Production is relatively neutral. Both Miata and Prius can be recycled at the end of their lifecycle. Newer cars like the Prius are designed to be over 90% recyclable, unlike older cars... and unlike claims by certain flawed "studies" that assume a Prius is completely disposable after an arbitrarily small number of miles, unlike a Hummer, which supposedly runs forever.

-

If we're going for shipping emissions, estimates peg it as equivalent to driving a single (25 mpg non-Prius) car for 1000 miles. So equivalent to about 40 gallons of gasoline per car, depending on the size or type of carrier it's delivered on.

A single Spec Miata does about 10 mpg on track (not including the cost of trailering the car to and from the track...) and completes maybe 50 miles per regular race (I honestly don't know). That's 5 gallons, not including practice and warm-up. One estimate pegs it at 15 gallons for the race weekend, just for the car.

-

So the shipping emissions for a Prius is equal to the emissions of a single Spec Miata racer over two to three weekends. If you include the emissions of your tow vehicle, maybe one-and-a-half to two races. If it's an out-of-state race, then it could be 1:1 or worse, in favor of the Prius.

And then you consider that those calculations are based on the most inefficient car carriers. The most efficient ones are three times as efficient... which means that the shipping for a single Prius could result in much less emissions than running a single Spec Miata racer for a single weekend.





*Not saying that the emissions for grassroots racers are huge, just that the emissions per unit in terms of shipping are often not as big as people think...

 

[Pupik]

Can anyone out there actually run the numbers to compare emissions from the entire Spec Miata field vs producing and shipping 1 Toyota Prius to the USA??

Except nobody is shipping a lone Prius in a Panamax or a 747F without anything else in the cargo hold. Toyota, nor any other manufacturers, could justify the expense unless they were making a specific point...you know, like the existence of motorsport.

 

[nick98]

*sees the thread title*

 

[Danoff]

Well, if you don't like the law why don't you vote them out? You know, like you did with the TSA when they started putting their hands inside your kids diapers and taking photos of your junk?

Oh wait... you can't. Because administrative law makes a mockery of representative government.

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

You'll still be able to have a racecar and you'll still be able to buy performance parts. You just won't be able to drive your car on the road if you built it into a racecar and modified the emissions system. You can still modify things like suspension, transmission, tires, etc. on a car without any issue. There will still be a huge aftermarket industry and people will still spend billions on parts for their vehicles since modifications is more than straightpiping something.

All this law is clarifying is that you can't run open headers, catless exhausts, or anything like that on the street, which is how it's already been for years.

That's it? Well, that doesn't sound too bad.

Though, pardon my ignorance, but if that's all this new law does, then what's the point in passing it? I mean, it just sounds kinda pointless.

 

[Joey D]

That's it? Well, that doesn't sound too bad.

Though, pardon my ignorance, but if that's all this new law does, then what's the point in passing it? I mean, it just sounds kinda pointless.

It's the government and they need to waste tax dollars on essentially rewriting a law that's already on the books for the sake of rewriting a law...I guess. I don't think most people understand government logic.

 

[Frenzyhero]

edit

 

[kikie]

I don't get it. Conversion to road legal race cars is going to be illegal or conversion to non road legal, only track use race cars is going to illegal (or both)?

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

There's simply no way they can enforce this. How will they even know if somebody has done such a thing? Presumably if somebody has truly converted a road car into a race car, they won't be driving it on the roads. And racing events are not something I see ever being policed by the state for individual regulatory purposes, there is simply not the manpower to do it....there are so many different sanctioning bodies and tiers of racing.

 

[kikie]

There's simply no way they can enforce this. How will they even know if somebody has done such a thing? Presumably if somebody has truly converted a road car into a race car, they won't be driving it on the roads.

Annual MOT test?
Or is there no such thing in the US? (just a question because I don't know).

 

[Joey D]

Annual MOT test?
Or is there no such thing in the US? (just a question because I don't know).

Some states require annual testing, others do not. But that's only for vehicles that are being registered for road use, if you only ever drive it on private property (like a racetrack) you don't need to register it and thus would never have to go through a state inspection.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Annual MOT test?
Or is there no such thing in the US? (just a question because I don't know).

MOT is nothing like it is in England. If the car is less than 5 years old, its essentially a computer scan to make sure there are no red flags. Some of the more snowy states have more rigorous inspections, but that's mostly for things like rust.

Some states require annual testing, others do not. But that's only for vehicles that are being registered for road use, if you only ever drive it on private property (like a racetrack) you don't need to register it and thus would never have to go through a state inspection.

Plus this.

 

[CodeRedR51]

http://www.autoblog.com/2016/03/08/epa-house-bill-racing-legal-sema/

HR 4715, also known as the Recognizing the Protection of Motorsports Act of 2016, or RPM Act – who says Congress doesn't have a sense of humor? – was put forth by a bipartisian group of US Representatives. And while it's not a wholesale shutdown of the EPA's aggressive new take on the Clean Air Act, it will ensure that road cars that have been converted to racing won't be violating any federal environmental standards. So competition-only cars will be safe, but it sounds like you'll still be in trouble with the EPA if you make emissions mods to pure road cars.