Hoping someone here can give me the right answer on this. I have a 1984 f150, 4wd with a 351w HO engine. I recently replaced the old stock Holley carb with a new Edelbrock 1406. The rest of the engine is bone stock aside from some new spark plug wires and ignition coil. So, EGR and air pump are still in place. Whether they work or not is unknown. I know some say removing the emissions equipment will improve performance; I don’t know if that’s true, however I’d like to tear it all out just to clean up the engine bay. In my state, vehicles over 20 years old are exempt from emissions testing. Here’s my question. Regardless of state law, doesn’t federal law mandate that any vehicle on the road have operable emissions equipment? Or are older vehicles exempt from federal law as well? Most folks would laugh at me, but I’m a Christian man and integrity is important to me. I do my best to respect the authorities and law as Scripture teaches us. So I don’t want to intentionally break the law if I can help it. Anybody know the answer to this one? Thanks for any help.

 

Well good for you for trying to do the right thing.
Yes "doesn’t federal law mandate that any vehicle on the road have operable emissions equipment?" it dose.
It's just the states look at the numbers of how many old cars & trucks are on the road still and of them how many are in bad working order to add smog.
You will find that most of the older cars & trucks are owned by people that keep them in pretty good running shape and dont drive them as much as newer cars & trucks so what ever smog they do put out is vary little.

Now on the new carb unless it is a factory smog Holley replacement you have already started down the wrong path if you really want to look at it that way.
That is why in CA replacement parts need a CARB number that have been tested to meet factory smog standards.

So with all that said it is up to you if you keep that stuff that is onthe motor or not as no one will know if there or not but you.
You can also look at it this way the smog stuff may not be working after all this time so removing it is not hurting a thing as it was not working.

Also how much will you be driving the truck? Mine I may take to work, 40 miles each way a few times a week or it sits in the garage all week and I take it out to make the weekly trash run, 5 miles round trip and maybe a car show on the weekends. So how much smog it my truck really putting out?

So it is up to you what you want to do.
Good luck
Dave ----

 

I also applaud you for taking the high road, but as was said the new carb you just installed already messes with the federal emissions law. I try to follow the law as best as possible also, but it gets to the point where they make it impossible for you to do so. The late 70's and early to late 80's was a dark time for auto emissions, they added all kinds of crazy things to get their vehicles to pass federal mandates. If you can keep up with it and learn all you can about it and want to repair it, then you find some of this stuff you can't buy anymore. They do not make and support some of these old emissions devices. That is not our fault, it's the automotive profit machine dictating that, and the government doesn't care and doesn't make them keep supporting these older vehicles and their emissions equipment. So if you want to keep your truck on the road, you have to skirt around some of this stuff.

I also am a firm believer that if you keep your truck engine in tune, with a good carb, plugs, etc. that it will pass emissions anyway where they set the goals for that year, and it will pass much better than it did when the emissions devices did not work and made the engine run lousy.

Right or wrong, that is my excuse for taking some of it off.

 

I'm not a lawyer but I thought state law governs over federal law. Any authority not granted to the federal government via the constitution was reserved to the states by the 10th ammendment. If your state says you are exempt from emissions testing after 20 years then that would govern over federal law. Federal law may govern for new car sales under the commerce clause providing a minimum standard for new car sales. Many states like California exceed the federal standard. Once the car is produced and sold I believe that state law governs. Vehicles more than 20 years being exempt is your state law and should govern.

A lot of emissions gagetry is designed to meet emission standards for new cars at idle but often reduce efficiency while under way. Removal of pumps which take energy to operate often improves performance and increases mileage by 10 percent and more. Increased mileage reduces emissions the same. But the testing doesn’t look at mileage only at tailpipe emissions at idle.

 

Thank you for the replies. Each of you raised some good points. That’s the confusing part, figuring out whether state requirements or federal regulation takes precedence.

 

Every state is different and really every county within a state can differ on emissions and testing. Your profile says you are from Georgia. Check out this information on emissions and testing:

https://www.cleanairforce.com/motori...ked-questions/

If you have any further questions I would contact the state and or county agency that is in charge of emissions and testing about your responsibilities for controlling your vehicle emissions.

Let us know what you learn....thanks.

 

I have gone round and round with this stuff for years, since I am always running older vehicles everyday and I live in Va where they do have inspections. I have to comply or I can't get a a sticker and put it on the road.

Each inspector is a little different. All of them in my area look for catalytic convertor. Some lift the hood, some don't. The ones that do, they are just looking for the smog pump if it had one. In your case with the new carb, in my area if you used the original aircleaner on it, they would not think twice about it.

 

I was wondering if every jurisdiction uses the tail pipe sampler?

Only a handful of counties in my state do emissions testing. The first county to do so was King County (Seattle area). They set up free emissions testing stations before the requirements for testing were established. Then they used the data collected over a few years to determine the failure threshold. They arbitrarily chose a 10 percent failure threshold based on that collected data when they went to the required testing. Yes science and data.

I'm not sure if they check equipment or not.

 

Thanks for the link, I’ll check it out. I may try and call someone from the state and see what they have to say.

 

Interesting. I haven’t inspected the air pump too much since I installed the new carb and started tuning it, but I assume there is no provision to hook the air pump vacuum hoses to the edelbrock?

 

Air pump doesn't hook to the carb usually. The large main lines to the smog pump go to large ugly looking valves, and then go to lines to the back of each cylinder head, and down and back to a pipe coming out of the cat convertor. There are smaller control vacuum lines that control the ugly air pump valves and there are a few other small devices associated with the air system. Where I live they never checked the operation. So long as it was there and had a belt on it, that was it.

I have forgotten what truck you have and what year, but the heavier trucks in the early 80's were exempt from some of this stuff. As the years went on they start including the f250hd/f350 gas trucks. My 89 diesel has no emissions at all on it, which is what I like and can get it inspected in good conscience. But now even the diesels have all sorts of emissions on them.

 

A good friend of mine was an engineer for GM back in the 70's when emissions gadgetry was being developed. He said the whole program was a cluster #*#* and the solutions they had to come up with were rediculous add-ons to meet standards. He told me that in his opinion they added pollution by reducing efficiency. Reduced mileage by adding additional friction loads to the engine. And it's true because I removed a smog pump from a vehicle and saw a 2 mpg increase.