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Comments
standards. The letters GPM stand for
grams per mile. That is the actual weight
of that pollutant put out by the car as
it travels one mile (on the treadmill in
the test case). The EPA standards for
new (out of the factory) cars are all
set in grams per mile. I think EPA's test
lab is in Lansing, Michigan. The EPA
likes this standard because it gives the
total pollutant load from the car. The
"ppm" standard is a concentration standard. It tells you how many ppm were
in the volume of exhaust sampled. To
convert from one to another you must know
the total volume of exhaust sample. You
multiply the "parts per million" by the
"millions of parts" to get the total parts, or weight of the exhaust. Generally you can't compare the two tests because exhaust flows vary from engine to
engine. The GPM standard is tougher on
big engines because they have larger
exhaust flows so even if their "per
cylinder" exhaust is the same an 8cyl will have double the exhaust of a 4 cyl.
Some jurisdictions use ppm standards,
and some use GPM standards. If EPA has
its way all jurisdictions will use GPM
standards, EPA likes this because as I
said above they can come up with a total
emssion value for all cars in the region.
Most jurisdictions do not like GPM tests
for two reasons.
1. They're expensive
2. They have reliability problems.
A complete rig for a GPM test including
treadmill, analyzer, etc can cost 100000.
The exhaust flow monitors are subject to
corrosion etc. It turns out that determining the total flow of a hot
acidic exhaust gas is not an easy thing
to do. It requires considerable maintenance to work in a real world
situation where numerous cars are being
tested in single day. But apparently
thats where all vehicle emission tests
are headed.
The numbers you gave (ppm) for your
car are pretty typical for a well
maintained used car of 1980s vintage.
Hope this helps some.
Anyway, it pollutes about 2.16 grams per mile, or 1 ounce per 12.96 miles., or 1 lb per 207.41 miles. Or...3800 lb over 788,148 miles! So far it's gone about 155,000 miles, so I don't feel TOO guilty ;-)
Anyway, Joecug, thanks so much for explaining the emissions results to me! My roommate's 1998 Tracker is going in for its test soon...it ought to be interesting to compare its emissions compared to my LeSabre
-Andre
As for what to look for, common sense applies. Everything electrical should work, so be sure to play with all the switches. Other than that, they are pretty straightforward 1930s technology, so a good checkup should tell you all you need to know.
If the car is sound, I would expect your biggest expense, short of a suprise catastrophe, would be gas...the car will eat plenty of it....figure gas and repairs...oh, .25 cents a mile?
Back then, the Cadillac would also have been a physically bigger car, too. It would've given you a larger trunk and more legroom inside. A friend of mine had a '72 Catalina 2-door, mechanically identical to the Caprice, and I've sat in it a few times. They're really not very roomy cars in the back. Plenty of shoulder room, so 3 across is not problem, but they'd better be short people, if the driver is tall!
The Caddy also weighed about 700-800 lb more than the Chevy, so I'd imagine it had a beefier frame, suspension, tires, wheels, etc. As a result, the car would ride better, and would also carry a heavy load much more gracefully than an Impala or Caprice would.
From a purely economic standpoint, sure a Caprice would make more sense than a Cadillac. And that's what it tried to be...a Cadillac for people on a budget. But nobody who could truly afford a Cadillac back then would've even given the Caprice a second glance. It could also be argued that a Cavalier makes more sense than a BMW 3-series or a small Benz, but I doubt very many people would be swayed!!
Four door, Concours model, 350 4bbl, 4 speed, gauge package, handling package. What a great start for cool sleeper. They're actually even kind of pretty. YMMV of course. I should probably track that one down someday (along with all my old cars, of course).
One of the most crazy-making things in California was emissions testing on older high-performance cars. As an example, my last Z/28 (302) was pretty fresh (10k miles or so) and in tune (value lash and ignition) but would barely pass by the skin of its teeth at idle. Push the rpms up above the allowed idle speed just a smidge and the HC's would plummet, but the computer doesn't care. Perhaps there was something wrong with the car that I wasn't smart enough to track down, but man, having a newish, utterly stock engine fail is a PITA. Don't doubt for a minute that the bad old days concerning visual inspections + tailpipe inspections will come back some day. If nothing else, remote sensing will cause some serious issues for Chevy 302's, 426 hemi's (which I've heard smog poorly) etc. I suppose if you are willing to deal with those cars (and the expense), you can afford a cam swap to a less dirty grind. End of rant.
Old big blocks are tremendous polluters, but really there aren't enough of them on the road for the state to worry about. It is gross polluters 1973 on up that will get nailed.
As I mentioned before, if nothing else, expect 1966 and up U.S. built cars (I forget what the year is for foreign built) to have to toe the line as remote sensing systems get the nod. My bet is that a common scenario in L.A. (for instance) will be an aircooled VW, on causing a high reading on an on-ramp, will automatically generate some sort of summons for the owner to pop on down to the referee station.
For some reason though, they stopped at '76. Even today, if I bought a '77 Caddy or something, even though it's 25 model years old, and can now qualify for historic plates, it still has to go through the emissions test. They also only test every two years nowadays. I don't know how soon you have to get a new car tested though. I've had my Intrepid now for about 2 years and 2 months, and haven't gotten a notice yet.
There are a few loopholes, though. For instance, depending on the county you live in, you may not need to get tested. My Mom lives in Southern Maryland, and never had to get her '86 Monte tested. But almost immediately after she gave it to me, the emissions notice came! I have a feeling that police cars are exempt from emissions testing as well. I've had my '89 Gran Fury about 3 1/2 years now, and never got a notice. Normally, when I get a used car, I get the notice about a month or so after I tag and title the car!
I admit that this sort of thing is rare (maybe non-existent for now), but I'd think twice before putting together a weber carb'ed, header'ed, big cam motor in a 1972 Camaro or its ilk. There's a lot to be said for 1965 Mustangs, early '60s Beetles, etc if a lot of money is to be spent.
If you don't think the laws will ever be changed, remember what happened in CA when testing became more and more widespread. Turned out that you were supposed to have all the smog gear all along and I can just imagine the scramble for pumps, original air cleaners, exhaust manifolds etc. as the screws tightened. In addition, there's *always* a serious push for removal of old cars from the road by air quality advocates (and the car companies I'll bet). Hey, they could be right.
Roll in the car (say a 1971 Cadillac Fleetwood).
Measure total emissions
Convert emissions to dollars
Pay that many dollars
I kind of envision a big dial with $0 to $whatever showing. There's no need for a linear scale, just some relationship between pollution and money. You want to drive a dirty car? fine, here's the bill. I realize this doesn't deal with mileage on the car, but that invites too much tampering with the odometer.
I used to sweat the semi-annual inspections. At one point we had to hang these NOX devices on engines. I forget what they did, probably meddled with vacuum advance or something--that always seemed to be a favorite target. What did vacuum advance ever do?
I always passed although sometimes they'd lean the idle mixture screws to the point where the car barely ran. I'd always run them back out and take off the NOX device but there must have been hundreds of thousands of cars that barely ran after they were smogged.
One time I almost didn't pass because some eagle-eyed Sears mechanic noticed that my '68 Cougar's rear sidemarker lights were just reflectors, not real lights. That's how they came from the factory but he took some convincing.
I don't mind crushing old clunkers if they are totally beat up cars with no value. No one's going to fix up rusted through 4 door sedans anyway, and being so trashed, their value for parts is probably negligible. Usually really nice or historically interesting cars are preserved. It's the beaters that get sold to the junkers anyway.
The thing that irritates me about crushing old cars, though, is that it still gives the factories free reign to pollute while crushing something that may or may not still have some use. While a 4-door sedan may not have much value, especially if it's ragged out, there are still useful items on it like the taillights, side markers, chrome, front fenders, interior trim pieces, bumpers, etc.
I bought a fender off a '68 Dart in the junkyard for mine, after it had a hit-and-run done to it parked on the street. I remember seeing that car about a year later, up on their pile o' cars waiting for the crusher. It still had the other fender on it, and it was still perfect. Well, about a year or two after that, I got hit on the other fender. Kinda made me wish I'd thought to buy the passenger-side fender off that junkyard '68, too! Maybe these things are still kinda common out west and areas where it's drier, but not here in MD. At least, not in good shape!
But yes, I agree, the "pollution credit" program seems like a scam. It's like the pollution is not taken away, but moved around. Well, maybe that's the idea. Get it out of the nice neighborhoods and dump it into someone else's back yard. This is very fashionable these days.
When the 1990 Amendments to the Clean Air Act were being phased in around the nation, there was a great deal of talk about the new standard posing a threat to old cars. Some even predicted the end of the old car hobby. As far as I can tell, that turned out to be much ado about nothing. I work in the Pennsylvania Senate, and most legislators are smart enough to realize that collector cars are not a serious pollution problem. (My boss, a state senator, is a member of the AACA.) Most of them are lovingly maintained, plus they are rarely driven. (Who would risk driving a nice, vintage Mustang, Camaro or Road Runner to work every morning?) As for those mundane sedans, most of the ones that I see at old car shows are low mileage examples that were owned by the proverbial "little old lady" who didn't drive them all that much even when they were new. As collector cars, their value stems from their low mileage and original condition, which really puts a damper on their regular use.
testing facility. I can say with
certainty that state auto emissions tests
are a creature of the politics of each
state. Delaware (where I work) Maryland,
Pennsylvania,and New Jersey are all
supposed to coordinate their air programs
but they all have different tests with
different test methods and pass/fail
cutoffs. Passing in one state doesnt
mean your car can pass in another.
This is especially true for older cars.
Some states exempt past 25 years, some
1975 or older (before cat converters)
some 20 years. Delaware tests back to
1968 when PCV valves were introduced.
And these rules have changed from time
to time. Never take anything for granted
with these test rules. In 1972 EPA
decreed that there should be no smog days
anywhere on the East Coast by 1980.
Since its now 2002 and there are still
a few smoggy days from time to time
I would expect these programs to continue
Also one poster commented on
older performance cars difficulty passing
tests. This is generally because these
cars are set for a rich idle mixture
and have performance cams with a large
fuel intake. This gives good acceleration
but poor idle emissions.I've seen
Chevelle SS engine emissions drop 90%
between 750 rpm 2500 rpm. There are
several ways around this
!. Lean up the carb for the test
day
2. Swap out the perf crank for the
test day
3. Attach a catalytic converter for
the test day, then go back to
the straight pipe after you pass.
If all else fails you buy a garage in a rural county that doesnt require emission
tests and register the car there.
I've seen all these things done and they
are all legal. Good luck on your next test.
If he didn't own it (name on registration) or if it isn't a documented movie car, it's not worth ten cents more because he rode in it as far as I'm concerned. Cars proported to be "Elvis's Gardener's car" or the car "used by Elvis's manager when in Florida" have flopped at auctions, so beware of this.
Some cars up for auction owned by two of Philadelphia's more notorious citizens were the 1973 Rolls-Royce owned by jailed mob boss Nicky Scarfo and a 1971 Rolls-Royce and 1987 Cadillac Coupe DeVille owned by serial killer Gary Heidnik.
I remember a Pontiac Station Wagon actually owned by Frank Sinatra, but it only brought about $6,000-$7,000. True, a bit more than a stock Pontiac Wagon (an old Tempest or something) but certainly no gold mine. Why did this happen? Because a) there were no photos or film clips of Sinatra in it (he may never have driven it, just registered to him) and b) it's an ordinary car.
You have to admit, a museum showing a Pontiac Wagon "owned by Frank Sinatra" with no evidence, sitting somewhere in a corner, is kind of a pathetic exhibit.
Unless you know the float setting is screwed up I wouldn't mess with it. The only time I got ambitious and fiddled around with this (out of maybe twenty carbs rebuilt over the years) I regretted it. The float level was way off according to the instructions but the car ran fine. As soon as I adjusted the level to the alleged "spec" the carb flooded. And since I hadn't measured the float setting before I adjusted it, it was trial and error getting the float back to where the carb wouldn't either flood or run out of gas.