The party is over. EPA is on the case.

Always fear...... The government is here!

Maybe if you only use 'for off-road use' products 182 days a year... 

Someone in charge of setting "high priorities" at the epa probably despises their neighbor's cool car

Just imagine the tuner industry going belly up. If this goes to a congressional hearing I hope they get someone like Jay Leno to advocate for us.  His celebrity and love for automobiles could sway some in a bipartisan way.

 They also need to make the argument that a car addiction is better than a drug addiction. 

I just want to add that what the law says and what people do is very different. 1 in 8 cars I ride behind are Cat-less as example. We have no official car inspections here I will say and I have read recently that there is an effort afoot to get rid of "safety/emission" inspections in a number of states given the better quality of the modern car. 

I do not think the enthusiast should be penalized for enjoying themselves as long as the efforts to make the car lighter faster better do not undermine emission or safety laws. Aftermarket suppliers would be a large lobby but I fear that the non US based location of these manufactures limits their political impact on the discussion. As long as tuners can follow the rules I would hope this would not doom the industry. Without doubt pre-existing cars which are legal cannot be made illegal by legislation - that would not stand in any escalation of court ballet 

Posted by: @t-bone

Without doubt pre-existing cars which are legal cannot be made illegal by legislation - that would not stand in any escalation of court ballet 

There is precedent for that happening with the EPA.Off the top of my head would be buried fuel tanks that were abandoned legally at the time. decades later discovered and the EPA goes back to company or family to pay for cleanup and fine. When abandoned there was either no regulation for doing so or what was done was to the regulation at the time abandoned.

I seemed to remember other regulations where it has happened with EPA and other things also. But I have seen several times where it has happened with tanks. disposal of farm chemicals, done legally at time of disposal seems to tickle my memory. But it has been decades ago that such happened in my memory and details are long forgotten. but I do remember originally they were properly disposed of according to regs at time of disposal. Even when those who disposed of chemicals had died years earlier. on property they sold legally. EPA went back generation or two for restoration, or tried to I don't remember the result anymore. But it has happened before.

EDIT restitution of restoration and fines.

The biggest takeaway from this is the EPA is targeting manufactures of said parts and tuners making sale of such goods illegal. It could even mean that EBay might just restrict the sale of used performance parts and maybe even make it illegal to sell on car specific forums having the owners of such forums restrict the sale of goods.  Whatever performance parts you have you are stuck with unless you meet in person for an illegal deal.   This is a very big deal that could destroy a whole industry and make race tracks ghost towns if they are given a mandate to restrict cars that are deemed illegal. 

 Its not just about some exhaust there is a whole industry dedicated to turning street cars into dedicated race cars some that are very large operations that build sanctioned engines for club racing events.   I imagine the PCA and other large organizations would have a problem with this including the manufactures where they sell their own performance parts. I wonder what position they take in all of this or will they turn on their buyers. 

Twenty years ago they might have have stood up, or at least  maybe made a good attempt to, perhaps  even 5 years ago. Today they will turn on them. Overseas producers might keep it up and send in mailorders for awhile. Backyarders might keep on for a bit. Machinists might do some work on the side for a bit. But nothing much. Once EPA gets involved there is NO over-site, therefor EPA can't overstep their authority. They have no limitations. Or unless you are a enormously big multinational corporation, then EPA faceless bureaucrats will get their way. Cost, enjoyment, jobs, investment, right or wrong, good or bad...be damned. it is the EPA.

Posted by: @grumpy

Twenty years ago they might have have stood up, or at least  maybe made a good attempt to, perhaps  even 5 years ago. Today they will turn on them. Overseas producers might keep it up and send in mailorders for awhile. Backyarders might keep on for a bit. Machinists might do some work on the side for a bit. But nothing much. Once EPA gets involved there is NO over-site, therefor EPA can't overstep their authority. They have no limitations. Or unless you are a enormously big multinational corporation, then EPA faceless bureaucrats will get their way. Cost, enjoyment, jobs, investment, right or wrong, good or bad...be damned. it is the EPA.

wow sounds like you kind of hate the EPA. The problem with hating the EPA is without it birds of prey go extinct, Love canal becomes a thing a again, Water quality LOL. Like the Union such enterprises have capacity for great good and great trauma I suppose from the issues regarding setting upper limits to what the agencies (any government agency) can do. I can say that I feel the EPA has done more good than harm. I like clean air and clean water and really like catalytic converters on passenger cars. I do not have the answer but vilifying without recognizing 1/2 of us would like be dead now from death cancer without the actions of the EPA in the 70s I think skews the conversation for those who are too young to recall what good the EPA has done for our country.

I don't hate the EPA. the EPA is not something to hate. It had its use , many in the past. It has its use for when it is needed and actually knows what it is doing. it does the big things fairly well. But like many...well all gov't entities it is get bigger and does more. when it gets beyond what it knows like every other gov't entity it doesn't know what it is doing. I gave 2 examples of such and you gave some examples of what it does well. It hardly does all well. But it has to grow and do more. It is a gov't bureaucracy. Early in most gov't bureacracies they do mostly the right thing. The longer they exist, the bigger they get the less "new" good they do. But being gov't they need to grow and spend more each and every year. Other than military where and when has any gov't agency ever gotten less money the next year? And rarely has the military. no other agency ever has. less of an increase is not less money the next year, it is just less of an increase than was wanted. Search 'baseline budgeting" to understand.

The US forestry is a fine example of them screwing the pooch. Abandoning fire roads, no longer allowing logging and limited clear cutting, no longer allowing damaged timber to be harvested and burnt to clear under brush, no longer doing controlled burns and more and you get what we have now increasing wildfires. There has been few things the EPA or US forestry  has STARTED this century that has been shown to be good. When first started US Forestry was great, now...not so much.

As for catalytic converters with the vast majority of engines being computer controlled and fuel injected  they burn much cleaner even without a cat, than even the best tune with a distributer and carb. Cats clean much less with the modern computer tuning. If you wish to compare now to then and have it actually mean anything you have to  add in modernization to the equation. not lock that single thing as never updating, never changing.. when you use that in you compartisations, you will still get much cleaner air and water today than before. Have you ever taken that into consideration? No one thing you don't like never modernizes, or never would have if gov't regulations hadn't happened. Or more clearly wouldn't have been that overreaching as they have become.

Posted by: @grumpy

Twenty years ago they might have have stood up, or at least  maybe made a good attempt to, perhaps  even 5 years ago. Today they will turn on them. Overseas producers might keep it up and send in mailorders for awhile. Backyarders might keep on for a bit. Machinists might do some work on the side for a bit. But nothing much. Once EPA gets involved there is NO over-site, therefor EPA can't overstep their authority. They have no limitations. Or unless you are a enormously big multinational corporation, then EPA faceless bureaucrats will get their way. Cost, enjoyment, jobs, investment, right or wrong, good or bad...be damned. it is the EPA.

I wonder if it ends up like what happened with Napster where they took it down but then other sites came up. Eventually they made a few examples of people sharing files that filed for bankruptcy when the fines were too much  and then they stopped prosecuting.  Eventually they went after your ISP and throttle your internet but even that is not being done now. Remember the do not call list and those FBI warnings on VHS tapes. The funny ones were people in fear of removing their mattress tags. 

If they follow the mandate of what they want to do it would be devastating blow for a multi billion dollar industry. 

Posted by: @t-bone

Posted by: @grumpy

Twenty years ago they might have have stood up, or at least  maybe made a good attempt to, perhaps  even 5 years ago. Today they will turn on them. Overseas producers might keep it up and send in mailorders for awhile. Backyarders might keep on for a bit. Machinists might do some work on the side for a bit. But nothing much. Once EPA gets involved there is NO over-site, therefor EPA can't overstep their authority. They have no limitations. Or unless you are a enormously big multinational corporation, then EPA faceless bureaucrats will get their way. Cost, enjoyment, jobs, investment, right or wrong, good or bad...be damned. it is the EPA.

wow sounds like you kind of hate the EPA. 

This is the kind of commentary that takes good threads like this into a trash throwing insulting degrading fights.

I certainly did not perceive his comments as hate

@cspidy

Funny I think your weak ass commentary with no contributions to content at all (ever) is the all inspiring toilet flush