[alfa] Smoggy sidebar (was: CA emissions test, high NOx, test numbers, etc.)

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In the discussion of emissions John Fox writes "the owners manual for my 1972 SPICA injected Spider has instructions never to lug the engine or drive it under high load below 2000 RPM - it basically suggests always running above 2000 RPM. Maybe Don Black will comment if that was there so that testers would run the engines above 2000 RPM in the federal test cycles?"
 
I wouldn't presume to speak for Don Black, but I doubt that he will comment; he seldom posted to the digest when he was reading it daily, and I don't think he follows it much anymore. However, I thought I might compare the "never lug the engine under high load at low RPMs" instructions in the 1972 Spider Owners' Manual with pre-restriction Owner's Manuals, and found that there are no such instructions in the ones I have from 1972 and adjacent years; there are several mentions of maximum speeds but none of minimums. The advice is certainly conventional wisdom, but unless it is in a California-specific edition (which I would doubt) I would guess that John Fox may have conflated it from a non-company source, and that it wasn't "so that testers would run the engines above 2000 RPM in the federal test cycles". 

As Joe Cabibbo says, Rev High-

John H.
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