Built like a Mercedes 3675

On Thu, 2 Feb 2006, Steve

I'm not sure I agree with your premise. Somebody had to make a start on attacking the problem somewhere, and it was us. Without that start, there'd've been much less impetus for the development of things like "digital" (electronic) fuel injection and other engine management and emission control technologies. Want proof? Go look at a 1990-model Mexican-market Chrysler Spirit. Parked at the curb, it looks almost exactly like its US Dodge Spirit counterpart. But those cars, brand new from the factory in 1990, had carbureted 2.5l engines running on leaded gasoline. Emission-ignition-fuel system that would've been current circa 1971 in the US and Canada (maybe that's overstating the case a little; the '90 Mexican Spirits have electronic control of spark advance, but that's the *only* modern engine management system they have). And that's just one example. How 'bout carbureted Volvos (with manual chokes, even!) clear on up through the late '80s and early '90s in some countries? Sometimes carmakers decided to equip all their worldwide production with the most modern of emission control systems, but often they did not. Somebody had to start the process by writing a law.

Of course, taking up the cause first meant, by definition, that we were the ones to have to cope with the problematic, incomplete results of the early efforts as we moved through the learning curve.

Disagree. Bosch D-Jetronic electronic fuel injection, introduced in 1968 and used through 1976 or so on various German and Swedish cars. Mercedes, Volvo, Saab, VW, etc. The only differences between that system and *scads* of early-mid '90s cars are minor:

-No closed-loop operation with D-Jet (no O2 sensor)

-Component design and construction differences (MAP sensors got smaller, engine position sensors got moved out of the distributor and over to the crank and-or camshaft)

The system's efficacy compared to carburetors was obvious not only in driveability, but also in emissions. In 1972, the Volvo 164's 3-litre inline Six was available either with twin emission-controlled Zenith CD carburetors, or with D-Jetronic. Engine idle spec for tuning: 2.5% exhaust CO with carburetors, 1.0% with D-Jet.

The D-Jet system was copied almost exactly by GM for much-ballyhooed installation on the '77 Cadillac Seville, to the point where several components interchange directly.

Following D-Jetronic was K-Jetronic released in 1973, which was a wholly mechanical fuel injection system. Feedback control with an O2 sensor was added for '77, and that system stayed in production, eventually gaining fullelectronic control, well into the 1990s.

It's not that EFI wasn't possible, it's that for the most part the US automakers just weren't interested in equipping their cars with it. They considered it too expensive, which was a shortsighted calculation: A new 1975 Volvo 240 with K-Jetronic had near-perfect driveability manners. A new 1975 almost-anything-made-in-the-US could not match the fuel injected cars' Instant starts hot or cold, no stumbles or sags or lean surge or any of the other problems suffered in spades by '70s carbureted systems. How much of the cost "savings" by staying with carburetors two decades too long do you suppose was peeed away in constant warranty comebacks for driveability faults and breakdown of the complex carburetor emission control add-ons, early engine failures due to ragged-edge lean carburetion, and customer goodwill forever lost? (Answer: More than all of it!)

Well...kinda both. There was a great deal of bad engineering coming from all over the world in 1970s cars. A very large proportion of it did come from US automakers. Part of it was simply due to learning curve progress: the task buttigned was new! Much of it was indeed due to poorly-conceived and poorly-implemented regulations. Probably the biggest failure of the US Government was its refusal to permit the US automakers to form a consortium for research and development of emission control technology. Such consortiums existed to great universal benefit in Europe and Japan, but the US Feds objected to the idea on grounds it would violate anbreastrust laws. So, every automaker had to do his own R&D. A great deal of time, money and effort was wasted, and the trip through the learning curve was made considerably slower and more painful by that stupid refusal.

Not only was there this new task (clean up your cars' emissions!) but there were other new tasks (make your cars safer! Make 'em get better mileage, too!) and the old tasks (make 'em appealing so they sell!) hadn't gone away. At the same time, the '70s saw economic downturns that slowed up cashflow for US industry as a whole.

So, a great many factors went into causing the automotive situation we saw in the '70s. These are only a few of them.

False. The only such exemptions were for TRULY tiny cars like the Subaru 360 that idiot Malcolm Bricklin insisted on importing. The mainstream Japanese imports from Honda, Subaru, Toyota and Datsun were all subject to the same safety and emission regulations as everything Ford, GM, Chrysler and AMC sold.

That's true. Same goes for Mexico (they got on the bandwagon in '91).

That's true (Europe & Japan).

DS