Rest of America: get ready to suffer through CA Emissions standards

[PeeLo801]

Looks like the rest of the U.S. will soon have to abide by the same strict emissions standard as California. I wonder how this will impact the car aftermarket industry.

Here's the link to the article:

http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramen...opts-california-emission-standard.html?r=full

U.S. adopts California vehicle emission standards


Mark Anderson
Staff Writer-
Sacramento Business Journal

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday released a proposed national standard for cars and for gasoline that slashes allowable emissions for a range of harmful pollutants — and brings them to California standards.
The federal agency said the goal is to “significantly reduce harmful pollution, prevent thousands of premature deaths and illnesses, while also enabling efficiency improvements in the cars and trucks we drive.”
The proposed nationwide standard reduces sulfur levels in gasoline down to 10 parts per million — a 60 percent reduction for much of the nation — by 2017.
That change in federal standards will bring them into line with the goals set by California years ago, said Stanley Young, communications director with the California Air Resources Board.
“We’ve been far ahead of the federal government for more than a decade,” Young said. California fuel requirements are currently under 9 parts per million of sulfur.
In a news release, the U.S. EPA said the standards would work with California’s program for clean fuels and cars to allow car companies to sell the same cars and trucks in all 50 states.
“For decades, California has carefully crafted emissions standards to protect the health of people and other living things. Now the federal government is joining with us to apply the same standards to the rest of the nation. The result will be improved health for millions of people,” said California Gov. Jerry Brown, in a statement.
Cars built before the new standards will run cleaner on the low-sulfur gas, the federal EPA’s release said.
Mark Anderson covers technology, banking and finance, medtech and biotech, venture capital, energy, mining, hotels, restaurants and tourism for the Sacramento Business Journal.

 

[rawbdog]

what a waste of tax payers hard earned money.

 

[Noize]

I don't know where in the crap you got 91 octane out of sulfur reduction, but you're completely wrong.

Don't scare people with BS.

 

[biggee72]

I don't know where in the crap you got 91 octane out of sulfur reduction, but you're completely wrong.

Don't scare people with BS.

I hope this guy is right because I lost my apr book and have no fucking clue how to switch to another tune.

 

[rawbdog]

I hope this guy is right because I lost my apr book and have no fucking clue how to switch to another tune.

doh!

 

[MBorVW]

Car off. Cruise off. Ignition on. Cruise on. Hold set button until flashing. 2=91 for me.

 

[Djmikeyd]

Gay as fuck. They really have nothing better to do in this country. Off to New Zealand I go.

 

[PeeLo801]

I don't know where in the crap you got 91 octane out of sulfur reduction, but you're completely wrong.

Don't scare people with BS.

relax man, it was a headliner title to grab people's attention. And please, scare a bunch of car enthusiasts? I honestly could care much less

 

[DarkCloak]

Please do a little bit of research before posting this nonsensical dribble. California (and most of the western US) does not have 91AKI gasoline because of emissions laws.

It it because a Company named UnoCal owns the patents on creating fuel that meets CARB standards for 92 and above AKI fuel. Thus all the other manufacturers refuse to pay the $.05/gallon as it will make them uncompetitive. Thus, we get 91AKI fuel. Since the refineries in the western USA are almost all in California it affects most of the western USA,

Removing this patent witch expires in a few years would reduce overall emissions as mfrs could tune the US engines for 93AKI fuel vice 91 AKI fuel and make the same power on less fuel. It may only be 1mpg or so but in a state of 38 million and a nation of over 300 million people largely living in suburbs it would certainly add up. Yes, if you are wondering automakers tune their cars in the US for 91AKI as that allows them to produce only 1 engine tune and better standardize production.

Think, 100 AKI fuel sold by VP Racing and Sunoco passes California emission standards with Low Sulfur fuel. It is unlikely therefore that going Low Sulfur automatically necessitates lower octane fuel. Since 100AKI is very expensive (Last month I paid $8.59/gal) the $0.05 cost to UnoCal is well worth it as the fuel is quite profitable.

Here is an excerpt of a technobabble article from back in 2k1.

By the time you read this, residents of Nevada and Arizona will have been screwed too. What, you don't live there? Just wait, you're next.
It's not like West Coasters haven't been screwed before. From roadside smog dynos to tickets for shiny mufflers, we're used to the man getting us down, but this time they're hitting us where we eat. This time they're taking our gas. We already have pretty crappy premium fuel in California. Just like most of the West Coast, we're stuck with 92 octane, while much of the Midwest and the East Coast got to play with 93 or better. Now, as of August 1, 2001, the best we can get is 91. Time to turn down the boost.

On the off chance you're only now trading in your Schwinn 10-speed on a twin-turbo Supra, I guess I should stop here and explain what octane is and how it affects your engine.

When fuel is injected into the cylinder, compressed and ignited, one of two things can happen. It either burns quickly and smoothly, shoving the piston down with a strong, even push, or it explodes all at once, releasing its energy in a sudden burst of heat and pressure. This explosion is called knocking or pinging, and it's something engineers like to call "really bad."

Knock is usually ill timed, occurring early in the combustion cycle when the crank and rod are still straight up or even worse, still trying to complete the compression stroke. As a result, all the energy released slams into the top of the piston without actually turning the crank. When this happens under stressful enough conditions--like, 20-psi of boost in a Miata--you start breaking things. Usually the ring lands; however, if your pistons are strong enough, you might get lucky and blow a head gasket.

Octane, for those of you still on the bike, is the rating of a fuel's ability to not do this. The higher the number, the less likely the fuel is to detonate. What this means to us, of course, is the higher the number, the more boost we can throw at that Miata. High-octane gas isn't just for tuners though. Plenty of stock cars depend on the stuff, including a Celica GT-S with its 11.5:1 compression, or a turbocharged WRX or Volkswagen 1.8T.

These cars rely on high-octane gas to keep from detonating. Feed them 91 octane and they won't start breaking things, because their knock sensors will see it coming and retard the timing, turn down the boost or otherwise reduce your chances of having any fun.

Whose fault is it this time, CARB? The EPA? The CHP? None of the above. This time we're being victimized partly by the oil companies, and partly--this is the one that hurts--by ourselves.

You see, when crude oil is refined into gasoline, the refinery doesn't have all that much control over what comes out. Crude oil is full of all kinds of stuff, and a refinery simply separates it, sorting all the iso-this and hepta-that in order of density. The really heavy stuff, like tar, is near the bottom, while the really light stuff, like butane, is near the top.

Somewhere in the upper ranges of the stack are the components of gasoline. There are between 10 and 15 different blend stocks, each with a different octane rating, which are mixed together to make gasoline.

The crude oil being used and little else determine the amount of each blend stock available for mixing. Generally, if you just dump all the blend stocks into a bucket, you end up with something around 88 or 89 octane. If you're selective and only mix the good stuff, you can make 92, 93 or even 95 octane. But once you take out the good stuff, you're left with crap--something like 85 octane. Then you have to leave enough good stuff in the bucket to bring this pee-water up to at least 87 octane. This limits the amount of 95-octane gas you can make. If you make 93-octane premium instead, you use up less of the high-octane stocks, allowing you to make a higher proportion of premium fuel.

In the Midwest, where an extensive customer base of good old boys in pickup trucks consume vast quantities of 87 octane, demand for premium fuel is low enough to make genuine high-octane premium.

In California, however, Lexus-driving executives suck down premium fuel like it's Evian, so 92 was the rule.

CARB isn't entirely innocent. Many of its standards for evaporative emissions and misdirected attempts at oxygenation have raised the manufacturing cost of high-octane gas, but it doesn't seem to be behind the sudden change to 91. Instead, according my super-secret oil industry mole, it all comes back to money. Unocal, you see, has a patent on the 173 easiest ways to make California-friendly 92-octane gas. As a result, every other oil company has to pay Unocal 5.75 cents for every gallon they make using one of these techniques. They haven't actually been paying it, but that's an issue for the lawyers to sort out.

Suddenly it's pretty obvious why our gas sucks, but why doesn't Unocal still sell us 92? Because it can't. In 1997, Unocal sold off all its 76 gas stations, and with them, its ability to decide what kind of gas to make. All Unocal can do now islook for oil, suck it out of the ground, and wish it had some way to make everybody else keep using its patents. You see, not only did Unocal screw us, they screwed themselves.

Ironically, the only gas stations in California with anything better than 91 octane are the ones Unocal used to own--the few 76 stations offering 100-octane race fuel. You can locate these elusive stations at www.76.com, but bring your wallet. The current going rate is $6.00 a gallon.

 

[Rockchops]

ITT: people who don't read. Its proposed, not passed. And its not 91oct for America. OP fail.

 

[TRUboost]

I don't know where in the crap you got 91 octane out of sulfur reduction, but you're completely wrong.

Don't scare people with BS.

CA 91 is MUCH different than any other 91 you can get in other states.

If your car is tuned, it will absolutely make less power.

My STI made 15whp more at 5,600 feet than it did at sea level on CA 91.

 

[biggee72]

ITT: people who don't read. Its proposed, not passed. And its not 91oct for America. OP fail.

Yeah, I def wasnt reading the above post.

 

[jball12]

relax man, it was a headliner title to grab people's attention. And please, scare a bunch of car enthusiasts? I honestly could care much less

Gimme a break

 

[DarkCloak]

CA 91 is MUCH different than any other 91 you can get in other states.

If your car is tuned, it will absolutely make less power.

My STI made 15whp more at 5,600 feet than it did at sea level on CA 91.

This is not true. 91AKI is 91AKI as they are both corrected to sea level and calculated by the R+M/2 method . Now if you were overseas and your vehicle was running 91RON that would be a different story as it would only be the R part of the equation thus equating to a lower AKI value.

Your car will make less horsepower at 5,600 ft because of the elevation not the fuel. In a standard atmosphere at 29.92inHg/1013.2mb at 15C/59F there is a standard lapse rate of 2C/thousand but more significantly you lose 1inHg per thousand feet of altitude thus if you were in an airplane taking off at sea level and climbed to 5600ft AGL the pressure would drop to 24.32inHg of mercury at altitude. Thus your car is making less horsepower due to the reduced atmospheric pressure not because of the fuels anti knock index. On a side note this lapse is also how an aircraft altimeter determines the altitude of the aircraft.

It is also extremely important to not that your car in Idaho was obviously on a different dyno than the one in California as they are obviously not easily transported. Were they even the same brand? Probably not. Were they calibrated to the same standard? Probably not? Did you have similar meteorological conditions with equal Altimeter settings and equal temperatures that day. No

Your post is useless

 

[Muellebs]

Eat my asshole California. :thumbdown:

I will keep my catless downpipe, NO emissions checks and 94 & turbo blue.

SMH