Here is some info about some of the major stuff EPA is regulating. In case you want to say they are not going after big companies.

Here are regulations called New Source Performance Standards (NSPS 40 CRFR 60). They regulate new equipment installed at facilities. The most recent is IIII and JJJJ, which relate to compression fired and spark fired engines.
http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text...60_main_02.tpl

Additionally they have 40 CFR 63 for all the toxic pollutants found here as volume 9 thru 14:
http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text...0/40tab_02.tpl

I am unsure why they went after Casper, but chances are if they are settling for money there is some doubt if it will stick. Normally, the EPA will fine or shut down people if they can, and settle for money if there is doubt about the case. Remember the government cannot be wrong as a regulating agency.

 

I seem to have become an expert at making things fail....if anyone doesn't want their stock cats to work anymore....let me know

 

I held onto all my stock parts figuring some time in the future the day would come and the party would end, hopefully I will be too old to put all the stuff back on at that point in time when it does

 

Personally I always liked (when I lived in the metro Atlanta area) waiting in line at the inspection station with a dozen of my other fellow drivers, idling in July, AC on, spewing hydrocarbons into the air while waiting for a "clean air" inspection. Wonder how much pollution we dump out sitting around waiting for the sniffers. X the cars I see in 1 hr at one station, times how many hrs that station is open, times how many stations, etc.

Wonder how much pollution illegal aliens produce buzzing around on our hwy's and byways? Now there's an idea...kill 2 birds.

 

What I fear most is at some point the feds will prevent us from modifying our cars. For example, it has been pointed out to me that technically it’s not legal to modify the cats that came on your car. That would mean pup cats and main cats have to stay in place as manufactured. That means no aftermarket cats.

Is that right? I don't know, but it sure sounds depressing. If I understand correctly the feds took the approach of requiring auto production that meets the standards. Then they required additional equipment to make sure it works. (This is why we all have rear O2 sensors on our cars.) To top it all off the feds mandate extensive warranties for the systems built into the car.

What all this tells me is that if they clamp down on mods they will not care if your car runs clean. All they are going to care about will be did you change it? If so you will be declared illegal. In my opinion if the goal is to require you to drive a car that's clean then stick a sniffer in the exhaust pipe once a year. If it passes you're good to go no matter how the car is equipped.

My fear is that if the EPA ever decides to stick to the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law we won't be able to change anything.

By way of disclosure, all of the emissions equipment is on my car and as long as I drive on city streets it always will be. If we want to keep the feds off of our butts we had all better take that approach.

 

Personally, I don't think this will happen for 2 reasons:

1) You would have to have all the tunes for every different make, model and engine combination out there in the machine and would have to have all the latest updates. That's a lot of information. As far as I know, changing PCM parameters isn't an EPA violation unless you do something to mess with the emisions. Remember things like auto trans shift points and final drive ratios can be changed, not just engine tuning paramters. Will this new software be able to determine if just certain parameters are changed or will it just be a go-no go on the programing?

2) Liability. Think about what would happen if your tune is replaced with the wrong tune? Who is now responsible for paying to fix the damage the wrong tune caused? Or, as spoken of already, what about CARB board leagal mods that require a retune? What if all you did was change gears and they reset your computer to the original gearing? If you went bigger, no problem, but what if you went smaller and now your speedo shows lower than your actual speed. Who pays the ticket? About four years ago I lived near St Louis. Part of the emmsions testing was running the car on a load simulator while sniffing the tail pipe. The problem that came up that they had to verify emmisions all the way to red line and if done wrong the engine and drive line could be damaged. I saw a story on the news where the moron had the car in reverse, didn't set the load cell properly, floored the car and blew the engine. At that time they were considering removing the run up requirement due people filing suit to try and get there car repaired.

Ok, lets say I'm no expert (far from it) on these things, this is just my personal take. Luckily I live in a state where annual inspections are limited to safety features and insurance verification and they don't mess with emmisions.

 

I agree. Heck without the right software my tuner could not even tune my GTO when I got it. I had to wait for him to get the right software and licenses. There is no way they could manage this data well. Additionally, the inspection systems in each of these states is slightly different. In NJ, lots of service stations are "Private Inspection Facilities" there are thousands of them. How do you keep everything up to date? Even with the internet this would be a giant undertaking.