For over a century, the automobile has represented freedom, power, and the thrill of mechanical mastery. The connection between driver, machine, and road defined what it meant to own and love a car. But in today’s digital era, a different trend is unfolding. Cars are no longer just machines designed to take us from point A to point B. Increasingly, they resemble something else entirely: smartphones on wheels.

        • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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          9 hours ago

          Lean burning increases mileage, but produces nitrous oxides.

          Rich burning produces carbon monoxide, which eventually converts to CO2 in the atmosphere.

          Unit for unit, NOx emissions are 265 times as damaging as CO/CO2.

          https://scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/how-climate-works/some-greenhouse-gases-are-stronger-others

          To successfully convert NOx, catalytic converters need a stoichiometric or slightly rich fuel/air mixture to the engine.

          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalytic_converter

            • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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              31 minutes ago

              Indeed.

              Unfortunately, no matter how well you tune your carburetor, just a change in atmospheric temperature is enough to throw off your mixture.

              The only feasible way to adjust it fast enough to keep up with atmospheric changes is with some kind of fuel injection, an ECM, and an O2 sensor to provide the feedback needed for closed-loop mixture control.

              Fortunately: https://speeduino.com/

              • IngeniousRocks (They/She) @lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                20 minutes ago

                I’ve actually got a speeduino conversion on the agenda, but the car needs a full plumb in place rewire first. Its been through like 6 owners before me, one of which let it get infested with rats so a ton of the wiring had been replaced (notice I didn’t say repaired, or fixed)

                The thing is a mess under the hood, I’m planning to run conduits with access loops every few feet to keep the wiring nice and clean. The end goal is California Ready but tbh I don’t expect it to ever meet emissions requirements that strict with a carb instead of EFI. I guess since I’ll be doing a speeduino conversion it wouldn’t be that much more work yo convert to EFI, or at least mod a turbo blowby hat to accept a diesel atomizer with which to jury rig a carb into a carbuer-efi hybrid.

                Idk, I’m spitballing at this point.