Can you legally remove/ bypass Catalytic Converters, Particulate Filters and EGR's for an offroad racing vehicle. If so, how would you bypass the computer, or know how to remove/ bypass without affecting another system?

 

According to Banks Power, they said they don't see any big difference in performance with either emission/nonemission diesel engines. The only difference is the emission ones just is cleaner. They strongly recommend leaving the emission system intact. You can be able to increase more horsepower and performance thru tuning and upgrades of air intake and exhaust systems. I think that article was in the Diesel Power Magazine dating on October relating to performance questions with the upcoming emission changes for after 2007.

 

emission control used to be just the cat (and maybe an egr).
07+ will have a system of NOx traps, dpf, sensors and software designed to monitor, trap and reform the exhaust of a stock motor.

i think the tuners, egr closers and exhaust pipers are going to have their hands full trying to work around the new motor's design w/out tripping sensors, violating federal clean air regulations and voiding warrantees.

its not about having a mandrel pipe bender anymore. its about NOx traps, precious metal catalysts, chemistry in SCR, fuel reformulation, ceramic honeycomb, sensors and software.. all working together as a *system* (that happens to be federally mandated and possibly inspected annually).

the companies developing these systems include Dow Corning and Bosch with very substantial r&d depts.

i don't doubt that a company w/ the resources that Banks has will be able to figure out some performance goodies. However they will prob not touch the exhaust side simply becuase it would require reengineering and installing every part of a new *system* (a very expensive proposition). Also, they know that owners of $50K trucks under 100k mi warrantee risk voiding that warrantee if ford sees anything not stock in the emissions system or computer logs (and ford is being very strict about this).

will the dpf then become the bottleneck? will all the cold-air-intakes, intercoolers, mufflers, downpipes and chips in the world add only an increase in flow to the point the dpf is able to handle? how much money are truck owners willing to spend to get minimal performance increases while risking warrantee voidation? (is that a word?)

interesting to see how well the stock regeneration can keep up with the extra soot of an injected/chipped/turboed motor and what effect that will have on milage and reliability. seems if you want to heavily modify your truck buy an 06. otherwise live w/ the 350/650 6.4 and leave it stock.

the future will be the hcci engines w/ low combustion temps (low NOx; no egr required), fuel reformulation for scr and syn/bio fuels.
either that or electric with its flat/instant torque curve and relatively simple design (once battery technologies improve of course).

 

Actually some people will find that the DPF will be a good thing as it will work to keep the emissions systems (such as the troublesome EGR's) clean and trouble free from carbon/sludge type buildups. I've also heard that the exhaust coming out the tailpipe will be cleaner in some cities than the air going in.

 

Thanks for the great responses to my post.