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CO2

Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 10:11 am
by FrankM83
How much CO2 does a normal good engine of a Morris Minor emmit? 10x

Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 11:10 am
by mike.perry
Not as much as a Maltese bus!

Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 11:11 am
by bmcecosse
How long is a piece of string!!!!!!!!! ?
Do you mean 'at idle' - or overall during it's lifetime !!
With careful adjustment you may be able to get the CO (Carbon Monoxide) idle % down to slightly under 4.5% (you may get it lower - but the car won't run very well!) , but this of course is not CO2 (Carbon Dioxide). CO results from incomplete combustion whereas CO2 is complete combustion where the carbon is oxidised fully. As CO falls - then CO2 rises. The amazing figures published for 'modern' cars re CO2/Km are more indicitive of reduced fuel consumption per Km, but I do wonder how much these figures relate to real life motoring since they are achieved in a Laboratory setting.

Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 3:32 pm
by ASL642
:o I'm afraid I just drive mine - working out how much CO2 I was emmitting would take me all day and then it would be too dark to enjoy the drive. :lol:

Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 5:04 pm
by bmcecosse
" working out how much CO2 I was emmitting " - maybe depend what was for breakfast ??

Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 7:20 pm
by rayofleamington
The best way to estimate it is to find a modern car (with published figures) that does very similar MPG to your car.
If you have the same MPG, you have the same CO2 emmissions! (the CO2 is the petrol's carbon molecules combine with oxygen, so the rate of petrol used = rate of C02 produced)

This will not correlate with a high accuracy to a EU drive cycle rating, because the mass, wind drag (and road speed) will be different - however it WILL correlate the real world CO2 emmisions between one car and another.


My guess would be about 160.

Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2008 7:47 am
by FrankM83
hi thanks sry late reply, question is asked as the Maltese government (or so they call it I'd call him something else!!) has imposed tax on how much emmission a car produces and how old and how long a car is!!! no exception to classics!! this is doom for classic cars on our roads!!

Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2008 7:51 am
by PSL184
Bad news, but how will the govt decide what the emission figure will be? New cars have manufactures figure to work from but old cars were never tested :-(

Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2008 7:52 am
by FrankM83
VRT station ( MOT in your country ) when you take it for the VRT the VRT man will probably write the result and tax calculated as such, my present van runs on unleaded so hopefully emmissions will be somewhat less

Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2008 8:06 am
by PSL184
Weaken the mixture too before you take it to be tested then put it back to normal afterwards.....

Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2008 1:53 pm
by rayofleamington
my present van runs on unleaded
unleaded doesn't affect your emmissions - however a good condition cylinder head will help reduce your smoke particles (no oil getting down the inlet valve guides) - therefore if your head was well reconditioned when converted to unleaded it may have a secondary benefit. A worn head and poor rings/bores will affect how much unwanted oil gets into the combustion chamber.

Actually the emmissions from unleaded are (possibly) worse as it contains more toxins to replace the lead. None of those toxins are likely to be measured at an MOT style test though!

A catylitic converter will reduce your CO emmissions, (converts Co to Co2 as well as removing some other pollutants) however there's no point even thinking of one unless you have a very well mapped fuel injection system. A small excess in petrol will poison the cat so the vehicle manufacturers gave up using carburetors.

An MOT style test will only be able to give a figure for idle emmissions - not a realistic emmissions figure :(
The Minor is lighter than modern cars which is part of the reason it has reasonable mpg.

Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2008 5:08 pm
by Luxobarge
^^^WHS^^^

The emissions at MoT test time are expressed as a % of output only, and CO2 is not even measured, only CO, HC and the like.

The sort of emissions that the govenment want to link to VED are absolute emissions of CO2 only - expressed in grams per kilometre, not percentages. MoT stations are unable to measure this absolute value.

The main products of petrol combustion are CO2 and water (H2O) and therefore the more petrol you burn, the more of these products are produced. Therefore (as mentioned a few posts above) a Moggie will produce very similar CO2 figures to a car with similar fuel consumption, especially if the fuel consumption is the same under the same conditions that are used to calculate the official government figures, i.e. vehicle speed, temperature, weight load etc.

Cheers! :D

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 11:07 pm
by FrankM83
Ok good news guys the emmision test will only affect cars from bought new from 1/1/09 nothing to worry about :) especially on cars with less than 1300cc engines which all my cars fall under that for now :D

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 11:09 pm
by PSL184
That's good news.... couldn't see how they would come up with a workable figure anyways :-)

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 11:20 pm
by FrankM83
It's Malta they can invent anything if they want!!

I don't know if this regulation exists anywhere but the new cars apart from emmission are goping to be taxed on length! :D

Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 11:22 pm
by PSL184
Same in UK for "making up" tax bands. Not on length yet but certainly on emissions.....

Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 12:09 am
by mike.perry
Maltese buses are safe then???

Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 12:42 am
by FrankM83
ohh they are safe , they've not been taxed or put on emmission test!! :D

Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 7:57 am
by markattard
Should anyone here would like to buy a maltese bus for daily transport.... they are for sale :lol:

They shall be put out of service in 2 yrs time....we shall use horses from there onwards :-? :D

Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 6:14 pm
by ASL642
That's why I love Maltese buses! You never know whether you're going to get there. Last one I went on one of the side windows was lying acress another seat. It had fallen out! :lol: Great fun!!