d00d

It may also be considered bad form to step on a vendor's thread.
The EPA has been authorized by congressional law to make regulations, so they are somewhat free to do what they please, unencumbered by direct legislative process.
Once there was a 5MPH bumper regulation enacted by a different agency, and that was rolled back to half under protest.
Currently there's another change in process regarding racing modifications.
There's probably a forum here that discusses automotive regulations, this topic is best debated there.

stout

Hey, I kinda hear you, and avoid plenty of vendor threads for precisely that reason. However, Rennlist is a public forum, and a car community. Our community. And here we have a vendor—good guys or not, I do not know, have no skin in the game, and wish them and their shop zero ill—offering a blatantly illegal product, knowingly or not, that harms the environment and people, and using Rennlist to market that illegal product.

I think that's a black mark on our community, our hobby, and Rennlist too. So, since this is a public forum, I spoke up. I find this mod roughly as awful as VIN swapping, and maybe worse—since it's not just about money; it's more than a little like forcing others to share your cigarette smoke.

I'm not here to offend fellow enthusiasts or because I'm enjoying this. But I am here to say those involved here just might be offending others, and doing a disservice to the hobby and our community. Any mainline journalist worth their salt would have a field day with this thread. One with environmentalist leanings would shred Rennlist and our hobby along with it for the actions of a few, who are gaining what again? 5 hp?

d00d

I promise not to force anyone into a closed garage to breath the fumes.
Not illegal for racing, although they tried;
http://www.roadandtrack.com/motorspo...rs-for-racing/

CAlexio

VAG as a vendor already sells 100,000's (if not millions? yet to be seen) mainstream cars with deceptive software to hide how illegal their cars are… I'm ready to "forgive" a small vendor who makes awesome but some slightly more permissive exhausts for a very small number of sports cars. The terms "legal" and "illegal" become quite relative in this context no? There are many corporations & execs (not to mention self-interested politicians) who deserve a big fat black mark on them, before one can be applied to this forum and all it's fantastic contributors and vendors.

Alan C.

I'm more worried about uncontrolled population growth.

stout

Okay, this is good food for thought. I remember this brouhaha, and feeling like the EPA was going too far with this, and siding with SEMA. Looks like it is still illegal to remove catalysts even for a race car, but that the EPA's weird language in that proposal was indeed withdrawn. I'm fine with that. But let's not kid ourselves: a lot of these are gonna end up in street cars driven on the street, while the GT4 Clubsport, which can't be driven on the street, has catalysts.

I am open to learn more, and am genuinely curious: What upsides are drawing you to this product given its downsides?

stout

VW will pay an extraordinary price for its misdeeds. Worse, 23,000 employees certainly will, and they're hardly the only ones by the time this winds its way through all of the suppliers, dealerships, techs, race teams, marketing and ad companies, indirect industries, etc. all the way down to stuff funded by taxes, etc.

In other words, it's a mess. And a bigger bummer than this for sure—but at least VW had an objective, wayward as it was. The objective here escapes me.

Well played. Got a good chuckle out of this...

d00d

I'm reading that and other articles differently, in that racing is exempt;
"Congress never intended for race cars to be subject to the Clean Air Act," the bill read. "The RPM Act would simply confirm that race cars are exempt from EPA regulation via the Clean Air Act."

Personally there are no downsides to an occasionally driven catalyst free GT4, the additional emissions are more than offset by my daily carbon free commute across the house from kitchen to office space.
Upsides are no early catalyst replacement due to track vibration and heat, and maximum HP increase for a header replacement.
I suspect that DMS's upcoming catalyst system will be a bolt on to the catalyst free system, replacing part of the muffler, and may even be quick connect (hoping) for more easy track day swap out.

ajag

LOL. Btw did you get the headers installed?

Alan C.

Not yet. Hope to get an update tomorrow.

Peter_GT4

VAG as a vendor already sells 100,000's (if not millions? yet to be seen) mainstream cars with deceptive software to hide how illegal their cars are… I'm ready to "forgive" a small vendor who makes awesome but some slightly more permissive exhausts for a very small number of sports cars. The terms "legal" and "illegal" become quite relative in this context no? There are many corporations & execs (not to mention self-interested politicians) who deserve a big fat black mark on them, before one can be applied to this forum and all it's fantastic contributors and vendors.

Please allow me to comment on this from a german point of view.

First and foremost, it was absolutely inacceptable and more than dumb what Volkswagen did here.

But the legal aftermath, especially in the US, is as inacceptable. Billions of dollar fees, the potential loss of tenthousands of jobs and a form of company bashing that makes me shake my head. In a country where V8 guzzlers are used in every corner and for everything over 100 feet distance, this has a strange taste to it and feels more like a strike against foreign car makers than a just penalty to me.

After all, the VW diesels with deceptive software are still very efficient and just not quite as clean as supposed to be, but by no means "dirty".

Comparing a GT4 with deleted cats and several 100 percent higher emissions to that Volkswagen issue is, with all respect, just ridiculous to me.

I don´t know how others rate your GT4 over there, but here in Gerrmany it is sometimes hard to justify driving such a car from an enviromental point of view. Running catless is unnecessary fueling of those who believe our hobby is one of the worst anyway.

And in the end..what do you gain compared to a good set of sports headers? 5 or 10 HP? A little more sound that´s already gorgeous with sports headers? Each to his own, for me catless is one step over the top.

Peter

CAlexio

Hi Peter,

your point is well taken, and yes, the world is full of extremes and oxymorons, and hypocrisy.
I won't comment on the US govt extent of punishment with regards to VW.. people here win millions of dollars in lawsuits from companies because their coffee was too hot.. so.. lets leave that alone. it's crazy.

My point was to say, and it seems like you agree.. that in a world where there are much more egregious "legal" things happening, like your V8 example.. or the simple fact that our "trucks" (pickups) are basically exempt from emissions regulations and people regularly drive diesel trucks which output black clouds of smoke at the touch of the throttle.. that a few catless sports cars are very low on the offense/illegality scale in comparison.




I understand Stout's point that catless headers provide very little extra value over the sport versions.. but in the context of a vendor being chastised for selling a product which people demand, or that there is a "black mark" on our forum because of our enthusiasm for this "illegal" catless header.. then I think we need to chill out a bit. There is so much more illegal or truly polluting happening in our world, that our little offense should not be taken so seriously.

PS: I don't even commute to work in car, i have a bicycle or my feet or my electric skateboard (lazy days).. so when i drive my "illegal" sports car for 50 miles a few weeks/month.. hopefully the green gods forgive me.

PPS: come to think of it.. i take so many airline flights that i probably pollute 10,000x than those hillbilly's with their diesel trucks who never leave their town... so, who am I to judge?

zmon

Exempt!?!?!?!

have you heard of DEF?

the folks rolling coal are modifying their vehicle in the same fashion folks are talking about modifying their GT4.

Sorry just had to clarify that because if the DEF systems did not exist to clean the emissions i would be getting better than 9 MPG in my 3500 GMC on the way to the race track.

and straight pipes for the win! although i went catless on my RS4 and will probably never do that again until i eventually buy these headers.

stout

Always welcome, and valued.

Agreed.

No question there is hypocrisy from some angles. I am sure I can count many more, as can you. However, no one is buying or advertising F350 dualies as "clean diesels." Last I checked, those trucks aren't deliberately circumventing the law. Moreover, I suspect it would have gone a lot better for VW if they had handled the matter better instead of trying to cover over what they did, stall for 14 months (or is it 24?), and then try to outmaneuver everyone. To my dismay as a guy who grew up around VWs, VW has written the book on how not to deal with something like this. As a result, I take no pity on VW whatsoever for the fines levied here. But I definitely take pity on the employees and many others who have lost out as a result of poor decisions and arrogance on the part of a small number of managers—some of whom should be in jail, or at least out of a job. I hope VW can correct its culture and its course, but it gives very little indication of any desire to do so.

On this we are in complete agreement.

Precisely. I find this product odious, and the very definition of not cool. As in NOT cool. And I am now getting PMs from other Rennlisters who agree but maybe aren't willing to publicly say so.


Yes, there are plenty of legal things happening that probably shouldn't be, and should be addressed. But that's not a good reason to make a bad decision. And that's kind of the thing that makes this mod so odious to me. It is undoing something that was addressed—and addressed really well—for little or zero gain. So this mod is as bad as rolling coal, which is one of the dumbest movements in the car hobby, ever. If SEMA hasn't spoken out about it, it really should. Like this mod, it's the kind of thing that really hurts the whole hobby in the long run. Not to mention, you know, the environment. It's not cool. It's stupid.

I walk to work, too. Most days, anyway. But I fly a lot, and I do think we as a society take flying a bit too flippantly. But why undo the good you do in walking to work with a mod that does awful things to the air you and I breathe here in the Bay Area (and, more importantly, out in the Central Valley—which gets most of our pollution) for no good gain. It's not "a little offense."

The increased durability benefit mentioned above is almost humorous. I am trying to think of the last set of GT3 catalysts I've heard about failing due to track use. I'm not saying it hasn't happened, but show me the proof and I'll listen. And then probably say, well, that's the cost of tracking the car—who gave us a pass to spend a few grand and turn our GT4s into gross polluter to save a few grand? And there are better cats out there for track work...

CAlexio

you know what the hard part is of arguing with informed and reasonable people, in the end you tend to mostly agree with them, so it becomes really hard to feel like you're winning a good argument. damn it.