Re: cat removal?

[James N Gagliardi <gagliardi+@CMU.EDU>]

Excerpts from audi: 11-May-95 Re: cat removal? by glen.powell@smc.com 
>  So if you are basically stock, there
>   is little
>   to be gained by removing the cat, and, if you do, the environmental
>   impact
>   is not large. I think it would make a lot more sense if the
>   powers-that-be would
>   look at regulating diesel emissions on everything from cars to the
>   largest
>   trucks and leave the few modifiers and enthusiasts alone, IMFO.
> 
I'm far from an expert on a subject, but I don't think the enviromental
impact of diesels is that great.  Diesels have a bad image because you
can see the pollution.  Apparently the unburned carbon from diesels is
messy but rather harmless compared to the stuff the comes out of
non-catalyst equipped cars.  

There was a discussion on rec.autos.vw about this last fall.  People
spent a lot of time talking about unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide
levels, compression ratios and theoretical compression ratios.  
However, the only thing that I remember was the message from someone in
California who ended the discussion.  This person made a wager.  He said
that if someone really wanted to prove that their car was more
enviromentally friendly than his Diesel Rabbit, he had found a way to
measure it once and for all.  He bet that if you started your car in the
garage with the garage door closed, and your window open, and he did the
same in his garage, you would die first.  

I agree with you about leaving Audi enthusiasts alone, a fuel injected
car equipped with an O2 sensor will always be clean(cat equipped or
not).  However, I'm not sure that you're right pointing your finger at
diesel cars and trucks.  The real culprit seems to be large gas powered
cars, especially carbureted muscle cars, big delivery trucks etc.  There
was a program in California a few years ago that offered people about
$1000 for any pre 1970 car that was running and registered.  I remember
hearing some crazy statistic like 5% of the vehicles produce %80 of the
pollution or something.  

James Gagliardi
'81 Audi 5000 Diesel