EPA Seeks to Prohibit Race Cars

[x33rs]

It's why I've built all my engines to run fine on the pump gas we have available.
Did that decades ago. Didn't even have to neuter the engine to do it. My wife daily drives our 69Z as a result, still with 11:1 compression. No need for modern engine swaps.

[70 copo]

Originally Posted by x33rs

It's why I've built all my engines to run fine on the pump gas we have available.
Did that decades ago. Didn't even have to neuter the engine to do it. My wife daily drives our 69Z as a result, still with 11:1 compression. No need for modern engine swaps.

Understood. Hardened Valve seats etc... but it is not just that, it is how does the EPA know your engine has been fixed/compliant?, these are the questions. As for aviation there is Lots of 70+ year old airplanes (and engines) out there flying around.

New certificated engines are crazy expensive as it is.

Most civilian planes will be able to use the new 100 octane Unleaded fuel, but the real high performance racers, acrobatic flyers and still flying WWII aircraft won't be able to fly as there isn't a 112 octane replacement fuel available for their high compression engines. For 30+ years the oil companies have tried to find something even 1/4 as efficient as tetra ethyl lead is at raising the octane rating of gasoline, and failed. 100 octane level can be reached mostly by ultra refining of gasoline, but going higher is going to take something as effective as tetra ethyl lead or switching to something other than gasoline. Methanol has the necessary high octane rating, but not the proper vapor pressure to work as an aircraft fuel.

IMO...We need to get in on the regulatory comment period to insure proper carve outs are permitted for the older hi compression engines to allow for authentic operation.

[x33rs]

As of right now, we don't do any EPA testing where I live and never have. So not really sure why I would be concerned whether the EPA knows my cars run on currently available pump gas. My advice would be to get your classics off that expensive stuff that is getting harder to find, and apparently may go nearly extinct from the sounds of it.

I started building pump gas friendly engines a couple decades ago. I got tired of the hassle of mixing fuel, or even finding it. Even 20 years ago that was expensive, and airports were already cracking down on guys bringing in cans to fill. I can't even imagine now.
That all got old pretty fast back then. Couldn't drive the car for any distance at all, and never really got to enjoy them as a result. Then we got tired of new cars and the direction they were going so we decided to drive the classics daily. That caused me to rethink how the engines were built and the changes I needed to make so I could just pull into any pump and fill up. As engine builders got smarter I learned a lot, experimented a lot. Now we can have a pump gas friendly engine that makes more power than the original engines did, and they aren't snarly to drive either.

We'll continue to drive them as long as there is pump gas available, and I can afford it. Hopefully I'll be gone before it gets to a point it's unobtainium, and if I'm still around, I guess I'll either have to get very proficient with my bicycle or go back to riding horses.