[Diy_efi] Is E85 worth it?

[Steve Ravet]

> > I never commented on the performance of a diesel, just it's 
> polluting 
> > nature.
> 
> Well you should probably check up on that before commenting 
> more because to summarise:
> 
> CO2 is 30-40% lower
> CO is nonexistant
> NOx is essentially the same in a modern diesel over the 
> lifetime of the car HC is nonexistant Particulates whilst 
> there is more, is in larger particles more easily handles by the body.

Thanks for the summary.  You may have missed the beginning of the thread
where I posted certification levels for the 2006 VW Jetta.  There are 3
non pickup diesel vehicles available in the US, the Jetta, MB E320, and
Jeep Liberty.  Here are the Jetta and MB numbers, and a Honda for
comparison.

	Jetta		MB E320	Accord
CO	.11		.1		.3
NOx	.55		.39		.01
HC	.824		.76		.01
part	.069		.064		NA

I didn't put in the V8 SUV, it would be too embarrassing.  How do you
clean up the emissions from your diesel Jetta?  Buy a gas Suburban and
use it to tow your Jetta around town.  You'll be faster, cleaner, and a
lot more stylish.

The above numbers come straight from the tab delimited file for 2006
here:

http://www.epa.gov/otaq/crttst.htm

This file lists certification levels (in grams/mile), not actual test
results.  Certification levels model emissions over time by applying an
additive and a multiplicative factor to the actual test result.  In this
case the time is the usable life of the vehicle, defined as 120K miles
for gas vehicles but only 100K miles for diesel.  These spreadsheets
used to list the test result in addition to the cert level, but
apparently don't anymore.

The EPA doesn't test gas engines for particulate pollution, and this is
frankly the first time that I've heard that gas engines have particulate
emissions.  I'm not an expert, though, do you have a reference for what
kinds and sizes of particulates are created by gas engines?

I'm willing to be convinced that VW and MB are unloading their crappy
diesels over here, saving their clean ones for Europeans.  I know cars
have to meet emissions standards over there, who can point us to the
agency that does certification, and their online results?

regards,
--steve


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