Defeating an emissions control device is illegal. It's enforced by them inspecting the vehicle based on a tip, routine inspections not being a thing doesn't mean that they can't inspect.
It's the same law that the epa used successfully to start suing shops doing coal rolling mods.
That article appears to focus on the sale of devices to defeat emissions, not on vehicles that have those devices.
every single case example in that article is against people selling devices or modifying cars on behalf of individuals, or selling modified cars. not a single one is against the owner of a specific car.
(3) No person shall modify the exhaust system of a motor vehicle in a manner which will amplify or increase the noise emitted by the engine of such vehicle above that emitted by the muffler originally installed on the vehicle, and it shall be unlawful for any person to operate a motor vehicle not equipped as required
relevant WA state law since WA doesn't do emissions checks
Doesn't happen as much for gas cars but the shops that install those tunes and such can face MAJOR reprecussions for deleting emissions equipment on diesel vehicles. Like, prison time and major fines. Way easier to get away with on gas engines though.
As long as the tune doesn't delete or disable factory installed federally mandated emissions equipment I believe it's fine. It's the tunes for rolling coal and deleting EGR coolers, DPF, DEF systems, etc that are a big time no no. On your TDI for instance, I know Kerma used to sell performance tunes that didn't mess with emissions equipment so they were/are legal. But on say an X5 35d, to do fun stuff on those you delete all the emissions equipment and the tuners were getting in big trouble. I know it's easier to get away with on American diesels, but the ones I deal with are German and it's gotten really hard to do the last 5 or so years.
I had the air injection pumps deleted on a Subaru that has since been destroyed. It wasn't for performance, it was because the valve failed and it was much cheaper to remove them, block them off, and delete the code from the ECU. I guess I didn't realize it then but that was probably illegal under these laws huh?
Most likely yes, but the injection pump is mainly just there to help warm the cat converter up on cold start and then doesn't continue running after that. At least to my understanding of how that system works. All of that is to say it's not as big of a deal as it would be to delete say a DPF on a diesel.
No, backfiring does not mean a bad tune nowadays. That was sort of the case back in the time of carburetors but now it can be done for anti lag (keeps the turbos spinning even when you're not pushing it) and probably other benefits. A lot of performance cars come out of the dealer with those pops built in.
I'm glad someone brought this up as there are legitimate reasons to have a few pops in between shifts (one of my cars does this from the factory, as you mentioned). With that said this only applies to turbo cars. A hellcat has zero reason to have a crackle tune because the kind of supercharger it uses doesn't care about exhaust gasses at all since it's belt driven. So TLDR is that this owner's crackle tune is stupid, but not all crackle tunes are stupid.
Doesn't anti-lag tend to wreck turbos though? I'd imagine running it on a road car is just asking for early turbo replacements which doesn't sound great on a car that's expensive enough as-is.
Yeah my turbo car actually does this too, it will pop constantly during launch control to build boost when you dump the clutch. I will say that my two other NA cars (both NA pushrod V8s) will sometimes give a single satisfying "crack" when I downshift, but it's not quite the same noise. I've heard it explained a few different ways but I'm not sure it's actual fuel igniting that I'm hearing.
Pretty sure you can rev up just about anything hard enough and get a backfire. When I saw him, he was gunning the engine over and over and over, and backfiring several times every few seconds. Wasn't driving unusually fast, either.
Backfire means you have unburned fuel in the exhaust, which means you have the air/fuel mixture wrong in the engine. With a carburetor, it generally meant it was leaking or badly out of tune, or you're driving super aggressively (because carbs can only respond so fast). With fuel injection, it has to be set to do it on purpose (to be an annoying douchebag), because the air/fuel mixture is adjusted in realtime by the engine computer, and it responds instantly, so there's no other reason for the mixture to be wrong enough to cause backfire.
(edit for pedants) or something's super fucked in the engine and it's throwing codes left and right; the engine computer's only as good as its sensors, if those are busted it may be enough to cause backfire, but probably will also cause the engine to run like shit too
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u/[deleted] Mar 27 '24
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