Pixelsmith once again says it all: 1500's
(and other engines!) run clean if they are
tuned right (and more importantly), KEPT
in tune.
"Kept in tune" is not the American way for
the majority, who use their cars as status
symbols and/or merely transport. The
majority did not care how it ran, they simply cared whether it ran or
not!
So, circa '68 we got air pumps to meet
"new" clean air standards as they applied
to cars, the majority of which were not
kept tuned.
California standards were even more
strict and "clean" became "more clean"
with the addition of "cats" (not the Jay
F. "meow" type!) to supplement or
complement air pumps, a practice which
became adopted for all states as cleaner
air standards were adopted for all, in time
(CA led the country in this respect).
On the "old" carburated engines of
"yesterday", these "devici" cost "power"
and loss of fuel economy. Since you
now used more fuel to go the same miles
in the same time with the same vehicle,
how much "cleaner" the air was that you
just drove through and left behind was
questionable. One thing however was for
sure; idling cars in high density traffic
contributed far less in these respects.
Today's modern fuel injected units run
by ECU's (especially the digital stuff)
"commanding" engine management systems fare much better in these
respects, with minimum loss of performance and fuel economy.
But even old engines ran pretty cleanly
if kept in tune; but the majority weren't
here in the good ole' US of A.!
Cleaner air standards would have been
adopted in time, even so, as more cars
occupied the same space over time,
anyway, as we "grew"; a case of "if not
today, tomorrow"!
Cap'n. Bob
'61 :{)
/// unsubscribe/change address requests to majordomo@autox.team.net or try
/// http://www.team.net/mailman/listinfo
/// Archives at http://www.team.net/archive/spridgets
|