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New Emissions Proposals For Kit Cars


Snapperpaul

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YOU NEED TO READ THIS

 

Kit car emissions

 

Taken from www.gov

 

Road Cars

 

Improving air quality and safety

 

Kit cars

4.10 Kit cars and reconstructed classic cars undergoing IVA will not be required to meet WLTP, given that at present they are not required to meet NEDC or the latest EU standards. Instead they are tested to age-appropriate MOT standards, on the basis of the date of manufacture or first use of the engine.

 

4.11 We are proposing that for kit cars, compliance with the MOT emissions standards current at the date of registration will be required, despite the use of an older engine. In other words the current relaxation for emissions according to the age of the engine will no longer apply.

 

4.12 Reconstructed (restored) classic cars undergoing IVA will not be required to meet the latest MOT standards, as long as the appearance of the vehicle is broadly unchanged and the engine is of the same capacity as that supplied with the vehicle when it was new.

 

4.13 When new vehicles were first required to be fitted with catalytic converters around 1992 (Euro 1 emissions standard), kit car makers typically used older engines which were not fitted with catalytic converters, hence the justification for age-appropriate testing of emissions based on date of engine manufacture or first use. The majority of the fleet is now vehicles up to 25 years old whose engines are fitted with catalytic converters, providing plenty of choice to the kit car builder.

 

Question.

 

Are you content with our proposal to require kit cars to meet the latest MOT standards, removing the current rule where vehicles are tested to MOT standards according to the age of their engine?

 

The consultation period begins on Friday 2 February 2018 and runs until Friday 2 March 2018. Please ensure that your response reaches us before the closing date. If you would like further copies of this consultation document, it can be found at https:// www.gov.uk/dft#consultations or you can contact us using the details below if you need alternative formats (Braille, audio CD, etc.).

Please send consultation responses to: Robert Lloyd-Smith

Zone 1/33, Great Minster House

33 Horseferry Road

LONDON SW1P 4DR

Email to: ivs.consult@dft.gsi.gov.uk

When responding, please state whether you are responding as an individual or representing the views of an organisation. If responding on behalf of a larger organisation, please make it clear who the organisation represents and, where applicable, how the views of members were assembled.

A list of the main representative bodies consulted is attached at Annex E. If you have any suggestions of others who may wish to be involved in this process please contact us.

 

Annex E: List of those notified of the consultation

Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) National Motor Dealers Association (NMDA)

Vehicle Bodybuilders and Repairers Association (VBRA) National Caravan Council (NCC)

Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle Converters Association (WAVCA) British Independent Motor Traders Association (BIMTA) American Import Agents Association (AIAA)

Niche Vehicle Network (NVN)

National Trailer Towing Association (NTTA)

Recovery Equipment Manufacturers and Suppliers Association (REMSA) Road Safety Markings Association (RSMA)

Freight Transport Association (FTA)

Road Haulage Association (RHA)

Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT)

Transport for London (TfL)

Local Government Association (LGA)

Low Carbon Vehicle Partnership (LowCVP)

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For what it's worth, I wouldn't be too worried about this, certainly for anything fuel injected. I appreciate anyone building a kit with an old carburetted Pinto will be in trouble but ask yourself this... honestly, who is doing that these days? Why would you, other than stubborness?!

 

I put the Zero through recently, on a 1993-4 Rover K-Series but knowing that I could not prove the age of the engine, I planned the entire build to cover for this. I made it worse for myself by putting race cams and a big valve head in there, but coupled with a 200 cell catalytic converter and some time spent on a gas analyser at a local garage it *bleep* it through the emissions test.

 

As it turns out, no K-series was made post-2009 so I didn't have to worry about Euro V, and just had to make Euro IV.

On the fast idle, CO with a limit of 0.20 was 0.02%. HC with a limit of 200ppm was 13

On the idle test, CO with a limit of 0.3% didn't even register past 0.00 :)

 

Assuming you're putting a fuel injected engine into your car with mappable management, you'll be fine. Even if you're sticking with OE management, the test is only asking that the emmissions management aspects of it are working correctly, which isn't unreasoable. Finally, if you're assembling a car with a knackered engine that's spewing carbons out, well... again, I think it's only fair the test picks up on this and makes you fix it...

 

I'd have been worried prior to putting this car on the road, but must admit now I've been through it all I've realised it's not quite the scariness it's envisaged as being... although it does potentially represent some £££ around time spent with an engine mapper/gas analyser (if you don't know what you're doing yourself)...

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Im going through Iva in the next few months and have a pinto running r1 carbs so yes Im concerned and certainly not stubburn its just been a long project to which I have finally got around to completing and have far to much investment in the engine and certainly no time available to change now.

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Hi, I too am in the process of going through IVA process hopefully within the next few months. My engine is a Cosworth version of the Pinto engine dated 1987. Also I have fully rebuilt this to high standards and being a high output turbo unit I have concerns over any reclassification on emissions, I am at present having a new management system and wasted spark ignition fitted to improve the dated original. Again high costs and time have been consumed and I am nervous of the outcome.

I want question the proposal by gov. and wonder if any others share my feelings and/or have any other comments:

1.As stated the engine age of the mentioned will be 25 years and therefore only of limited supply, is it really worth changing the rules when choices are so few?

2.The mileage covered per annum by Kit Cars is generally limited and usually restricted to pleasure only, will the minimal additional emissions be of that much concern?

3.Producing new vehicles is extremely high in the emission count (taking many years to recover against savings - if at all), isn't it better to maintain a resource?

4.Kit Car builders in general try to utilise pre-manufactured parts all with higher longevity than the car producers bodywork that will be either be damaged or corrode, isn't it better to re-use serviceable components rather than scrapping - where very little of the scrapped resource will find it's way into a new product?

5.Are newer engines really that much better at emissions, especially with the current manufacturers prosecutions?

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Im going through Iva in the next few months and have a pinto running r1 carbs so yes Im concerned and certainly not stubburn its just been a long project to which I have finally got around to completing and have far to much investment in the engine and certainly no time available to change now.

 

That's fair enough, I didn't mean stubborn for people in your situation - moreover if you were starting the build just now. I would hope there's a period before the change-over to allow people to work towards completion. I doubt the rules will come into force that quickly, does this government do things that quick :) ? Probably be years before the change is implemented!

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From what i read above, and i Might not have this right so correct me if i am reading this wrong...

 

Current situatuion is If you are making a car and want it registered with an age-related plate (e.g. 2001) you use parts from a car that is that age, same as always. This is no different to if i drive a car of the same age. It's mot is tested to 2002 standards.

 

What this is saying (from what i understand) is that although you have a 2001 plate car we are going to test you for a 2018 car. So we won't be giving you the benefit of a 2018 plate but we'll give you the hassle of having to meet it's standards.

 

Additional concerns, apart from additional cost, is taxation. What will it be taxed as? If it uses the new system you might get away with it being cheaper to tax. But what if you spend a load of money getting to the 2018 standard but you are still taxed on the old rules.

 

Given that DVLA aren't exactly consistent with kitcars, i can imagine a fair few problems at the MOT station with the automated system.

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Guest lotusPaul

It would take alot of electronics to get a tuned 302 to pass current emissions.

I can see where the tunnel ends on this, they clearly want emmisions cleaned up across the board so would force current and future would be builders to source a modern engine.

The realistically thinking amongst us and those that are even slightly observant could argue with valid point as to how many of our cars are actually driven regularly, so with so little in use would we really contribute to cleaning up the air? Id say a massive NO to that.

 

Having just left my last company where my company car was a 22.5ltr twin turbo v12,id like to argue that we as a minority hardly contribute to polution. I only have to drive 10mins to catch the ferries going in and out of Portsmouth harbour, take a photo and tell me im barking up the wrong tree. If you can get close enougth take a photo of my Tank starting up from cold, it probably throws out more in 5 mins than our whole club leaving stoneleigh.

 

For years we as kitcar owners have been targeted and this is just the next tool in the box to attempt to destroy our hobby and remove us from the roads, yet from middle of this i can drive any of my Loti around knowing i need no MOT. And in a few years the early 80s rocketships will be also MoT excempt..they were rubbish off the factory let alone decaded latter..!!

 

Rant over..

 

Lovely weather if you can see it through the smog.

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The whole process would be a damn sight simpler if they just exempted kit cars from emissions testing altogether. Bikes are exempt and how many millions of them are on the road (including mine)?

 

Is getting rid of a few thousand kit cars really going to save any polar bears?

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Got to admit, everyone's arguments about the sort of volumes of cars and the amount of mileage they are probably doing is important context... hardly seems worth all the faff really, does it? For the potential damage to the kit car industry in terms of additional costs....

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wow - motorbikes have no emissions tests?

Very popular mod on bikes - rip the cat off straight away, and all the emissions strangulation that they have to fit to them. In all honesty, Euro IV has really strangled some of the bike manufacturers engines and has forced many of them to go larger cc's just to get the effective power they need for marketing. No-one wants to buy a bike with less power than the previous model, so many of them have gone bigger on the engine :)

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So would a bike engined 7 not require an emissions test?

I don't think it works like that, no, I believe it's related to the vehicle being a bike, rather than the engine itself. I think most MOT stations would see a car and test it like a car, no matter how much the owner tried to convince them "but it's a bike engine!" :)

Edited by brumster
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