I've always wondered how/why offroad use should get a pass on emissions.
Do the math.
Figure out the total fuel used by all the race cars in the Daytona 500. Then figure out the total fuel used by all of the spectators getting there and back. The actual environmental impact of the race cars themselves is a drop in the bucket.
Even at a regional (local) level ... My van uses more fuel getting my race bike to the track and back, than the race bike uses all weekend, by a fairly substantial margin.
"But why should it get a pass on emissions" ... At least in the field that I'm in ... Safety. A red-hot catalytic converter is a fire hazard. The exhaust system is hot enough without having a catalytic converter add to it.
In any case, the engine is operating under load conditions where the catalytic converter is not effective anyhow. At full load, all high performance gasoline engines have to run rich of stoichiometric to avoid meltdown. In those conditions, the catalyst is only going to deal with a fraction of what is coming out of the engine anyhow.
People rolling coal and auto racing with straight pipes. Kinda crazy that daily drivers have to meet tight regulations while the 4x4 offroad vehicles and race cars are dumping fuel like crazy, probably at 5 mpg. It's part of our culture, who can go the fastest or go the biggest, with no concern for resources in the process.
I would rather see industries like manufacturing or airlines face stricter regulations than put it on the people.
My biggest question is how will this affect tuners like Malone, Kerma and APR and how will affect us TDI owners, who might want a tune after the fix?
I'm not in favor of the rolling-coal crowd, either. BUT.
Without the business and money that people buying performance goodies contribute to the system, the manufacturers of those performance goodies would largely be unsustainable if they had to rely on selling to racers only.
What's really needed here is for the EPA to get out of trying to regulate racing vehicles but also implement an easier and more cost effective way for aftermarket parts manufacturers to get their products approved.
You CAN chip-tune an ECU without affecting the part of the map that affects emissions. You CAN install a high-flow catalytic converter that will be sufficiently effective for a road vehicle. You CAN retain the crankcase breather system even if you install a catch can.
You can not make a road-legal emissions bypass system, though ...
P.S. I have 5 motorcycles. None of them are stock. They've all been tuned. They all still have whatever emissions equipment they came with. That ranges from nothing (model year 1989, carbureted, no catalyst) to closed-loop EFI with oxygen sensor and three-way catalyst (model year 2015). The stock muffler is gone on the latter one and replaced with an aftermarket one, though, because the stock muffler weighed 17 pounds ...
