[Vwdiesel] EPA things

[Travis Gottschalk]

Funny thing is the Gov was giving grants out to replace your engines on your fleet if you could prove you needed/could use it at the coal mine. It seemed funny that you had to punch a hole in the block of the older engine to disable it. So basically you had to mine out the materials, ship parts from accross the world, have techs driving back and forth to figure out how to get it to work in your older machine all to save some fuel that just putting a couple upgrades on the old engine would have netted the same results (better turbos, injection system, intercooling, etc-same things we do to our VW's already). 
 
Then there is the particulate trap thing I don't fully understand. So if you don't drive faster then 45 (limited to 40 at the mine) you won't activate the regen process to clear this thing out. So you are dumping raw fuel through your engine to burn this trap out? How is that efficient? Then the added heat of the rest of the engine components to due all these emisions things (particulate trap is one heated thing that has to be close to the engine to get the heat best, EGR as well) so then you need to have a larger cooling system/fan to help prevent overheating robbing HP and MPG as well on the bigger machines. I always laugh when I read about the people that want to be fully "green" in their eyes. Do they know they would have to live in a cave (so no trees are harmed and make sure a bear/wolf isn't already living there so as to not disturb them either) and have to make there cloths out of hemp (unprocessed) and eat just berries and grass? Them just typing an email on their computer is going agaist there "green" things. Same as the new CA law that a certain percentage of new cars sold must be hybrid/battery operated. So you are telling me that a hybrid SUV getting 20MPG is better then my diesel car getting in the 50's MPG? And all that electricity isn't all that "green" either. And yes even natural gas has polution in some of the steps to get it to the power plant (think-local water issues, also some can start their water on fire). There-done venting a little bit
 
Travis G
> Oh, man, I know. Diesel makes the world go round, but gas drives those that
> think the world revolves around them.
> 
> To an end user (me for instance), it would seem that great pains have been
> taken to improve air quality almost solely at the sacrifice of efficiency...
> to the tune of about a 12 TO 25% increase in fuel usage moving from tier 2
> to tier 3 compliance in ag engines. Pretty much the same for other on and
> off road users with a wide variability in how the increased costs get passed
> on. Now that we are in tier 4 transitional compliance, different technology
> is being used (urea) which should bring fuel efficiency back up... maybe for
> some anyway (not JD). But no matter how you look at it, efficiency is
> certainly not high on the want list of the rule makers. Kind of like
> natural selection, if you don't select for it, you don't get it, and nobody
> in the north american engine market has been big on efficiency because it
> all hangs on nitrogen emissions. Some players have a lot of European
> exposure, which influences their engine design quite a bit it would seem.
> (fiat group- case, NH, etc)
> 
> Reasons vary, but mainly it was using EGR. It's like we are now replaying
> the "smog rules" engines cars used in the 1970's in offroad engines. They
> use EGR to keep the combustion chamber cool to not make NOX compounds, and
> surprise surprise, you have to use more fuel to get the same power. I
> distinctly remember the parents 1978 bronco that made a whopping 8mpg
> IMPERIAL right out of the box. You could quite easily confuse the
> speedometer with the gauge for the enormous fuel tank, both moved in
> concert, but different directions. 
> 
> At least those that are now using urea cat in tier 4 engines are able to
> bump timing and durations with high boost to get really hot combustion, hot
> combustion chambers make more efficient power, it makes the particle trap
> work better too, then fix the nox with a urea cat. Overall efficiency is
> much much higher. Guys that I know that have bought the 350K new tractor
> are quite happy with them- they HAD to get rid of the fuel guzzler tier 3
> junk that it replaced. A big acre farmer can make a tractor payment on the
> difference in fuel use between tier 3 and 4 transitional engines.
> 
> I wonder Travis, since the EPA has been used as a trade manipulator for so
> long with air quality being the saw, if they would know what is good for the
> environment even if it jumped up and bit them in the ass. Personally, I kind
> of doubt it, it's still more enviropolitics than good intelligent use of
> resources in some kind of sustainable manner.
> -james