[Greg Reimer 7376]

You know, this is close to the subject, but I used to use exhaust gas analyzers occasionally when I was working, having fixed cars,trucks,and vans for around 40 years, and enduring the never-ending succession of emissions testing that the sacramento circus act continually forced on us,but I wondered a few times what a race car's emissions would be going down the track in real world terms. I know the start up would have to be bad,the lumpy idle and the lower speed run from the lanes to the water box would load the air with all kinds of nasty unburned hydrocarbons and all, but once the car leaves, what do you suppose goes on between combustion chamber and the end of the header collector?You don't see too much in the way of black smoke emanating from race car collectors, therefore, things must get a lot more efficient about halfway up the RPM band in first or second gear.I guess a good tune up shop with a floor dyno and an infrared gas analyzer could test for this, but if you ran a 375/396 or a Max Wedge 7000 RPM in high gear would there be a commercial dyno out there strong enough for that stuff? Even an average quadrajet 327 puts out over 400 horsepower to the flywheel.
I remember seeing 454 quadrajet motor homes and Suburbans working a hill at load,getting onto the freeway, or in high altitude scenarios, and black smoke was almost a natural occurrence, which is, too much fuel, too rich carburetion,and all kinds of energy wasted. If the race car was such an issue, you would think the fans in the stands at 1000' would be reeling in the aisles from all the environmental catastrophe.
I've lived in the LA area since 1966,and I remember smog. It had a chemical type odor,it would burn your eyes, and being kids in the summer,tearing around on bikes, swimming,playing baseball, and being outside until just before dinner,and being barely able to breathe because of the chest pain in our lungs. In the mid '80's,after carbureted engines got about as far as they could,the fuel injection came out, took over, and now we actually don't have a smog problem like we had. You can live anywhere in So Cal and actually see mountains and blue skies. It was technology that did it, also today's fuels are far better than the old stuff brewed up in the old days. Little weird green people jumping up and down on the bluff at Santa Monica and waving green flags did nothing to improve fuel efficiency,gas mileage, and sir quality. I don't want them to step in and do a study that might release data that would harm our sport politically. I just wondered what the actual results of such an experiment would be.