EPA Requirements

April 2007

New Diesel Emissions Standards, and the Lister 6/1 DI, another page written is George's typical style

 I finally broke down and bought a new diesel pickup, this was a big step for me, as these new trucks are far from kiss!

 When I look at what these manufactures have done to meet these higher tiers of EPA emissions compliance, I see it as a huge undertaking. We see common rail fuel systems, fuel management systems, super high pressure injection systems, converters, particle traps, and all kinds of technology.

 I watched Cummins hold onto their proven and popular technology, and finally, they knew if they were to remain in the market, they must move towards electronic fuel management and other enhancements to meet the new EPA requirements.

 There’s several Cummins pickups in my neighborhood, the old 2 valve units can be heard a block away, the new 4 valve is pretty darned quiet.

 Among the marvels of newer technology is my 2006 Duramax, at 360 HP, and lots of torque, I now go over mountain passes like they aren’t there! According to my truck, I’m getting 20-22 MPG with an 8000 pound crew cab on the freeway!  Attempting to describe all the technology deployed would take a few pages, and you can certainly look it up elsewhere. 4 valves per cylinder, electronic controls all over the place.

 As I have come to understand, adding a one dollar part to a truck, is a big deal, and I am confident that there was a good reason to put all this stuff on the truck. There have been wars between engineers and bean counters over 2 cents, and companies put out of business because their competitor did it as well for 2 cents less. We need to keep this reality in mind always. 

 Old designs are hard to clean up the EXPERTS say, if it was easy, at least one of the many companies that has invested in all this technology would have certainly figured it out.

 But there are DIYers on the fringes of our group that believe in magic. They believe you can take the oldest of technology, and change the cam profile, retard or advance the injection timing, maybe put a limiter on the fuel rack, and presto!  you’ve met the EPA emissions standards for 2010! One should remember, these tier 4 EPA standards make the present Euro standards look like a small bump in the road!

 There are folks that have lined up to buy tablets that turn water into a usable fuel for Automobiles (as demonstrated at the County Fair). There are people who lined up to buy devices of all kinds that make more energy than they consume, even School Districts!  There are many people who bought plans for the 300 MPG carburetor.

 One of the things that makes the emissions standards real is the fact that they are measuring emissions based on KWH output. A person with  poor equipment, or poor protocols could think he is observing all kinds of improvements, and he could report those improvements thinking he has it right. We must remember, the devil is in the details, and so are a good many miss-understandings, and deceptions. I left some evidence of my own deceptions calculating KVA on utterpower.com.  If you are not careful, you can be a long ways off, I leave this on the WEBsite as a reminder for myself, and all who care to note, do your own math, verify how others do theirs!  

 Enron accounting errors? well they weren’t errors, they were deliberate most likely, but there are those amongst us that deceive themselves, and I think they do so because they want to believe so badly, they want to make something work so badly, that they will overlook a great deal to make it happen, and sometimes this might be on a subconscious level.

 There are several DIYer forums where unbelievable news gets posted. One thing you seldom see is a good solid question asked about how these results were measured, and how the results were calculated. In some forums, it’s considered just plain bad manners to ask, and those who attempt to bring some levity to the conversation are considered villains for spoiling the fantasy by those who want to believe so badly.

 As I watch current events, I fully realize that about half of us believe in the FREE lunch. I don’t think it has a thing to do with intelligence, but it is what allows cons to sell bridges, allows politicians to get into office promising a free ride and more of the the impossible, and many vote because they want to believe so badly, they will not do their own thinking.

Snake oil has sold well for 6000 years or more, and there's tons sold on late night TV every day. There's magnets you put on fuel lines that'll give you 20% more mileage, and little pills you can take that'll make you handsome. There's stuff in a bottle that'll rebuild your engine same as new, and every bottle finds a home. DuPont's intensive research proved that PTFE was no benefit to an internal combustion engine, but when they tried to deny sales to those companies who added it to oil and sold it for that purpose they were sued! Millions of bottles sold, millions of happy customers :-)

We can calculate just how many BTUs of energy it takes to make a kilowatt hour of energy at the crankshaft of our prime mover, and as we know, the Kwh we finally deliver to an appliance via our inverter was far more costly.  There are many who think a kilowatt made, is a kilowatt stored, and they are likely to be the same people that think we can meet Tier 4 compliance in an antique engine with a screw driver and some bailing wire.

Some of the all time great posts on DIYer forums are made by folks that don't own an engine or generator of the type being discussed, and hundreds look on knowing it's not polite to challenge what was posted, but you could be less direct with your question and beg forgiveness if you are flamed..

Instead of asking.. "do you own and engine?", you ask, "what brand of engine do you have, and when did you get it?"

Hey! before I forget, we have a "Carbon Neutral" program underway, it's pretty much a Euro thing, but Americans are catching on.. Here's how it works, my broker goes to Africa, he makes deals with remote tribesmen that have no access to petrol, or even veggie fuels. He then gets them to agree NOT to use the fuels for a year in exchange for payment. Now, let's say you are driving a big ole SUV, and feeling bad about it. If you buy this promise not to burn fuel from this tribesman, you are only burning half of what you were! Now think about it, for a few dollars more.. you could buy 10 shares, and then you are burning hardly any fuel at all if you measure your activity per capita world wide. So start saving your money, and I'll be posting where you can send it, carbon neutrality will get you invited to the right parties, and soon you'll be hanging with the in crowd, all for just a few dollars a month. Meet Movie Stars, Politicians, and Big Shots!       

George B.

previous comments

Hat's off to the Men and women of the EPA. I'm sure the vast majority of them want to make a difference in air quality, and who will argue that this is a bad thing? From past experience, I'm sure their mission will be encumbered with as much RED Tape as they themselves can produce in any given amount of time. We must look at some the totally insane people the EPA have to take direction from, knowing this, they certainly have my empathy.

I have read a few amusing forum posts about making attempts to meet Tier Two criteria for a Lister type engine, before any of us attempt this, I think we need to understand the DIYer slow speed mentality, we are about KISS engineering and value, whether we like to admit it or not, most of us are looking for a bargain. With this in mind, we need to look at the window of opportunity from present to the end of Tier 2, this is a short window in deed. If we subtract about 120 days, (the period typically required to order and floor a decent quality engine), the window is smaller indeed. If we truly understand how small this Slow Speed DIYer market is, we can see just how much we'd have to tack on to each engine sold to cover the efforts of meeting any modifications AND other work done to meet emissions compliance, remember Tier 3 is coming!

This basic design runs counter to everything emissions engineers suggest is proper (Petrol based), BUT even if you did meet tier two, what is your opportunity to recover your investment? Who will pay the extra money?

If we look at the EPA and their requirements, Any Engine that is rebuilt MUST be tested and found to meet the present tier to be legal. What this suggests to me is that you might pay a premium for a tier 2 compliant engine (if possible) only to find yourself JUST as illegal as the guy who built an engine from parts. Drop in a set of rings to your tier two compliant engine and now you are >legally< required to meet Tier 3 as it is just around the corner!  Lose that cooling loop for a few minutes and in theory, you just lost your legal status, if you need to replace the rings. You are now just as illegal (technically) as the guy who built an engine from parts. In fact, since these parts might have been on shore for a good long time, the block may be exempt, and you may be better off from a legal point of view? 

In our DIYer community, There seems to be an 'all too myopic' view of the situation to come. When Tier 2 comes along, the EPA would need to employ a significant portion of the population to assure that every lawn mower shop, and small engine rebuilder is complying with the law. If a small engine shop fits a set of rings, and maybe laps the valves in an expensive Irrigation pump engine, they might be legally required to perform an emissions test when the work is complete and condemn the engine is it does not meet the present Tier. I'm sure 100% compliance will be a 'hard sell' for both the farmer and the small engine repairman, but maybe the EPA can add significant numbers or recruit Al Gore and his followers to 'sniff out' non compliance at every turn? Perhaps Dealers and repair shops will be become informers, and do all they can to drive each other out of existence?

When we consider just how many stationary engines run only long enough to test them per year, it is going to be a huge expense to farmers and other entities that have stationary engines only for emergencies. Examples of these groups are farmers who have back up to electric irrigation pumps to save crops if the grid fails, Telcos that use them during outages to recharge their battery plants, etc. Of course, we add to this small generators everywhere that are seldom run, and sometimes save lives at care facilities, or keep a person at home on oxygen breathing through a power outage.

When we understand how miniscule the contribution to emissions problems this segment of stationary power is, it's a shame our Government has targeted them as an engine that will meet new emissions criteria. As we know, Telco, Farmers, Ranchers, Hospitals, Nursing homes and more will have to burden the added cost of meeting the newer tier, and we must also look at the head count in government we will add to police the new emissions laws, all these costs will be passed onto us in the form of taxes and/or higher priced goods and services.   

It's all a lot easier to do in transportation, but in the stationary engine segment, this is going to be a sticky wicket, stationary engines can't be driven to the local emissions tester :-)

There are plenty of lessons to learn in our own DIYer community, one might be starter systems for the 6/1. We see many examples of how easy it is to add a Chevy flex plate to the crank shaft and fit an inexpensive rebuilt starter. Break something, and you only need buy an inexpensive flex plate or new starter. There are plenty in use, and I know of several engines that are started twice a day every day with no problems. If this solution works so well, why would we want to attempt to sell a starter that costs 3 times as much? We need to know what this market will tolerate and what is not marketable. Some folks create stuff before they know there's a market for it, and for the most part, there's no down side for the many that might cheer the person on to create it. 

Raise your head up, look down the road, in just a short time, >most< small engines will be illegal as per their compliance with tier 2 emissions not just your hobby slow speed engine. So if you're going to hide your illegal Lister Type, you better be hiding all the other non conforming small engines too :-)

As of today, this is my interpretation of reality, it may not be yours, you might drop me an email, and let me know why I need to see it different.

It might be time to buy some parts, or maybe a whole engine?  

All the best,

George