Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Tele man
EPA coverge extends to ALL states, CARB exceeds EPA.
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But, they have little teeth in the scheme of things. Just as long as a person's vehicle is not dripping fluids, exhausting visible smoke and showing questionable construction we have little to worry about from the authorities other than annual inspections and traps.
The "non tampering" laws are hoped to be a deterrent but enforcement efforts are usually reserved for bigger targets. People such as pgfpro and soulcrusher have little to fear about what they post about their projects on this and other public boards as it is beyond the reasonable scope of the authorities to police such activities. Thousands of high school, college and university vehicle projects would fall under the "tampering" laws and yet there is no wide spread effort by the EPA to stop these infractions even if they are publicly published on the net and student papers. Even more illegal activities are publicly published by private individuals on the web.
The authorities generally go after sellers. A local dealer was fined several hundred thousand for selling and installing a non certified device on roughly a hundred vehicles he sold out of his lot. This does not mean they do not go after individuals. Some particularly onerous individuals who have attracted undue attention to themselves have come under scrutiny. But, if you are the average tinkerer, you have little to fear.
If soulcrusher makes it to the point of a production viable product, then he will have to meet the EPA requirements. However, depending on his product, he may not have to meet as extensive a set of requirements as an OEM. SEMA (Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association) has workshops and guidelines that can be helpful in this matter.