John Mooney, an Inventor of the Catalytic Converter, Dies at 90 (nytimes.com) 73
John J. Mooney, an inventor of the catalytic converter, the small and ubiquitous device that makes the engines that power everything from cars to lawn mowers less polluting and more fuel efficient, died on June 16 at his home in Wyckoff, N.J. He was 90. From a report: The cause was complications of a stroke, his daughter Elizabeth Mooney Convery said. Mr. Mooney was a high school graduate working as a clerk at a gas company when his colleagues encouraged him to pursue a college education. After earning a bachelor's degree and two master's degrees, he went on to receive 17 patents during his 43-year career with the Englehard Corporation in Iselin, N.J. (now the Catalyst Division of the German chemical manufacturer BASF). Among them was the three-way catalytic converter, which has been described by the Society of Automotive Engineers as among the 10 most important innovations in the history of the automobile. The Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that tailpipe emissions from the newest passenger cars, sport utility vehicles, trucks and buses generate about 99 percent less smog-producing exhaust and soot than those from the 1970 models did.
more fuel efficient? (Score:5, Insightful)
Catalytic converters are a pretty cool tech for reducing emissions but in themselves I don't see how they improve fuel efficiency in the process
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You beat me to it.
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I was thinking perhaps it was a knock-on effect of engineers integrating exhaust restrictions into engine design more now that they had to have the converters in place and just knowledge that max efficiency in regards to exhaust is somewhere between free flowing and a certain amount of restriction and tuning to that rather than the converter itself. That or just engines happened to start getting more efficient around the time converters were being introduced and it just appears converters ha that effect.
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On the other hand he certainly helped mainstream the recycling movement. For many years (perhaps still) the largest source of platinum in the world was a catalytic converter recycling plant in New Jersey.
Actually, less fuel efficient (Score:3)
"Catalytic converters restrict the free flow of exhaust, which negatively affects vehicle performance and fuel economy" [wikipedia.org]
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I would like to see the context of the claim, since the Wikipedia citation is "Crutsinger, Martin (29 September 1982). "Kits to Foil Auto Pollution Control Are Selling Well". The Gainesville Sun."
As far as I understand it, ideally one would want a backpressure wave for optimal scavenging during valve overlap on a four cylinder engine. Free flow of exhaust isn't a great idea, as one coul
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I don't see how they improve fuel efficiency in the process
Phony advertising claim. They also whiten your laundry, freshen your breath and improve your sex life.
Re:more fuel efficient? (Score:4, Informative)
Catalytic converters are a pretty cool tech for reducing emissions but in themselves I don't see how they improve fuel efficiency in the process
I agree. However, compared to other emissions reduction technologies (retarding timing, CVCC, etc.), I believe the catalytic converter is more fuel efficient.
Cleaning up emissions after combustion allows engine designs that are more fuel efficient, but higher in emissions, while still achieving the same results at the tailpipe. This is particularly the case for NOx emissions.
So while the catalytic converter doesn't improve fuel efficiency itself. It can be an enabler of other fuel efficiency technologies.
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So while the catalytic converter doesn't improve fuel efficiency itself. It can be an enabler of other fuel efficiency technologies.
This graph [energy.gov] shows average automotive compression ratio each year since 1925. Higher compression ratios yield higher efficiency, both theoretically and in reality. However, high compression ratios typically result in higher NOx emissions. You can see that compression ratios reduce and level off when stricter emissions standards come into effect in the 1970s. However, once catalytic converter technology was well developed, compression ratios began to increase once again.
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You're not wrong. In fact, the higher the octane rating, the less energy you get per liter, but it's almost insignificant.
Long ago engine designers and builders learned that higher CR (Compression Ratio) result in higher power and efficiency. In gasoline (and alcohol) engines you want combustion to start when you cause an electric spark in the spark plug. But higher CR can result in preignition and detonation, which are a result of heat and pressure. Preignition and detonation are a bad thing and even s
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most engines since the 1960s have some form of EGR- Exhaust Gas Recirculating system. Mixing exhaust back into the intake system cools the combustion and reduces NOx, but obviously you lose some power and efficiency.
EGR is actually a means of keeping combustion chamber temperatures steady when reducing fuel burned. It reduces NOx by reducing oxygen, since the exhaust has less of it than a fresh intake charge. If you simply injected less fuel for a given amount of air, NOx would go up.
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Thanks. I've always heard and read that NOx is created by peak temperatures, therefore cooling combustion reduces NOx. But like you said, extra O2 is needed to make NOx, so either way, NOx is reduced.
Too bad we can't centrifugally separate O2 from N2 before it gets sucked in...
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Regular 87 octane is just fine. I refuse to own a car that requires at least 91. As many miles as I drive, fuck that gas bill!
I had a car for 13 years that required 91. Back when I bough it, 91 was regularly 20 cents more per gallon than 87. The increase in compression ratio, resulting in better fuel economy, made the situation pay off economically.
However, a few years later, gas stations stopped advertising their price on high octane fuel. Instead of being 20 cents more per gallon, it was often as much as 1 dollar more expensive than regular 87. I put up with it for a few years, and then sold the car. I'll never buy anoth
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CVCC only worked as an emissions technology BECAUSE it is fuel efficient. It permits a small richly charged volume to ignite a larger, leaner one. But it was only a carbon reduction technology, it increases NOx [google.com].
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Ultimately, instead of mandating the desired result, that is reduced emissions, regulators mandated the technology. This closed of any further innovation. I am of the opinion that things would be very different if the government just told us what it wanted, instead of telling us what to do.
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This is unfortunately a side effect of the way governments operate. Regulations are not written by law makers, or experts in the field, they are written by lobbyists. Lobbyists don't care about the end result, they only care that you use their client's product to get there.
Most laws would be far better off talking about end result rather than method of achieving it, but that's not how laws will ever likely be written.
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Nobody here said the government shouldn't regulate, we said they should regulate OUTCOMES not methods.
You want reduced tailpipe emissions? specify the levels, and test them. Don't say "you must use X technology to achieve this". They may come up with a different technology that achieves the same goal, in fact it may even end up being better, but because you said they had to use X that can never happen and you're stuck with that one technology and no real progress beyond it.
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I wish I could mod you +10,000. If I were king I think I would abolish all lobbyists. That or establish a law that there would be a People's Lobby, funded in equal parts by all the other lobbyists.
I think the govt. system could be fixed if we can get them into a more "agile" mode; where they pass laws, but at the same time are examining the effects, repercussions, unintended consequences, and adapt the laws... quickly.
Sometimes I genuinely feel sad for the govt.- they're like a well-meaning but naive pers
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Yes, but it's a bit more complicated. In the 1960s they started adding the AIR system to some cars. As well as higher thermostat temps., vacuum retard, EGR, and a host of other mileage-killers.
BTW, sorry to disagree, but how can an AIR system reduce mileage? It's just a small low-power air pump squirting air into the exhaust system. Annoyingly in the way, very noisy sometimes, but draws so little power...
BTW #2: American cars were essentially required to have cats in model year 1975 (so beginning in 197
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This, IMHO, gave especially the Japanese an unfair advantage in the market because in those days the cat added something on the order of $1,200 ($6,300 in 2020 dollars) to each car.
It's not unfair if you can reach the same tailpipe standards without a cat, like in the original Honda Civic which used CVCC to get CO2 and HC down. Unfortunately, it increased NOx, so they had to go to a catalyst like everyone else to meet NOx standards.
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In the 80s we used to routinely remove them, at the same time we fitted exhaust headers and dual exhausts with free flowing mufflers.
Newer cars are more temperamental about such mods, but catless downpipes are still a popular mod on my current car. Not street legal in most places, but depending where you live you may be more or less likely to get caught.
"By eliminating the restrictive catalytic converter in the factory downpipe, back pressure is reduced significantly which results in faster spool, an incre
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I bought a 1974 Vega (not only the worst car that I've ever owned, but the worst car anyone I've ever known ever owned) which had the catalytic converter hacked off and a splice welded into place. When that bit of stupidity rusted out a couple of months after I bought it I ended up clamping a new splice into place with a layer of asbestos between the layers of pipe. Every few months the asbestos would blow out and I'd have to cram some more in there. Damn that was a terrible piece of junk.
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I once had a Pinto, so I feel your pain.
Cosworth Vegas were well regarded back in the day, but not many were made. I recall a few with transplanted V8s around here as well.
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I bought a 1974 Vega (not only the worst car that I've ever owned, but the worst car anyone I've ever known ever owned) which had the catalytic converter hacked off and a splice welded into place.
I had one too when I was a teen. The stock unsleeved aluminum block engine would warp and burn oil like crazy as soon as you overheated it a bit. My friends used to joke about how bumpy the ride was when I drove over the painted lines in the road. At one point the frame was cracked and there was no consistent position to hold the wheel in to drive straight. :)
But it had a lot of room back there with the rear seat folded. Ah the good old days
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Between burning, leaking and just generally throwing oil everywhere it used a quart of oil a day, grass would not grow in its parking spot in the back yard for a decade. I had to carry a 50 pound weight in the back just to keep the damn thing from sliding all over the road, and how Detroit could design a car the rusted out so fast is beyond me. I did win my high schools informal parking lot donut contest that winter, I even beat the guy with the Fiat Spyder. Learned a lot about how to fix cars that year.
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Meh, modern cars' catalytic converters aren't really restrictive unless you're modifying the engine and need more flow. Even then, you can just buy a larger sized full flow cat and have no difference in performance.
People are just cheap or operating on the assumption cats haven't improved in 30 years.
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I would not personally do a catless downpipe as a standalone mod, but certainly in conjunction with a tuner chip and a free flowing intake. It is amazing how much more horsepower you can get from a lot of todays stock engines with just a few relatively inexpensive bolt on mods.
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Yes, but you can just buy a bigger freeflow cat from the likes of MagnaFlow and have both, but again, people are cheap and catless it is.
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Yes, but you can just buy a bigger freeflow cat from the likes of MagnaFlow and have both, but again, people are cheap and catless it is.
If you live somewhere where regular emissions testing is a thing I can totally see how that might be useful insofar as exhaust components are not easily swapped. The chip and the intake are much easier.
Still, if you want to get more power from your engine you are probably not going to do so nearly as effectively if you plan/have to conform to factory emissions numbers. They are the primary reason your car is limited in the first place, no matter how high tech it is.
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In the 70s and 80s the USA couldn't figure out how to make an efficient engine. You could buy a Cadillac with a 7L or 8L V8 that didn't even make 200 horsepower. They kept enormous displacement and kept de-tuning and adding air pumps.
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In the 70s and 80s the USA couldn't figure out how to make an efficient engine. You could buy a Cadillac with a 7L or 8L V8 that didn't even make 200 horsepower. They kept enormous displacement and kept de-tuning and adding air pumps.
The fundamental problem was a lack of sequential fuel injection, which makes a massive difference. The Japanese had that by the mid-eighties but most American engines didn't have it until the mid-nineties.
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I certainly don't miss carburetors, distributors with points, or any of that. Modern engines with overhead cams, variable valve timing, turbocharging, direct injection and ECUs controlling everything are obviously better in most every respect. But one thing that has not changed is they can still be improved on if you enjoy that sort of thing. Today you are as likely to use a laptop as a wrench, but it is still an enjoyable hobby for many to mod their cars.
I can see a day coming when they may be completel
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Cats by themselves, no. But they had an important side effect: catalytic converters can't handle unburnt fuel in the exhaust gases. So when the cat was introduced, it provided an incentive to switch to fuel injection and closed-loop exhaust monitoring (lambda sensor) to make sure you're not injecting too much fuel. Carburetted cars routinely dumped too much fuel into the intake. So much so that you could smell the unburnt fuel coming out of the exhaust.
Electronic fuel injection made it possible to properly
Re:more fuel efficient? (Score:5, Informative)
Catalytic converters take the oxygen off of the NOx and use it to break down the unburned hydrocarbons, and carbon monoxide. However, if there is oxygen in the exhaust, it will break down the hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide and allow the NOx to pass out of the tailpipe. If the engine has too much fuel, there will be no tailpipe NOx, but there will be hydrocarbons and CO. Lambda controls are needed to to keep all three species to a minimum. In the 70s and 80s emissions standards weren't as strict, and there were a lot of cars with cats and carbs. Lambda controls just improve the catalysts performance.
Source: I'm in the automotive catalyst industry. Also, this book. [amazon.com]
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Thank you- I never looked in detail at cat operation. I never knew the cat broke up NOx. That explains a LOT- I've done some PCM tuning and there's a fairly big section of parameters for the cat, including that they somehow calculate (guess) cat temps, etc. Now a lot of things are making sense, including aft-cat O2 sensors. Time to put thermocouple on the cat. Thanks again!
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The thing was put to use in the 1970s when fuel-injection was rare. These days, engines are vastly superior that a cat converter isn't necessary. Sadly, regulation never keeps up with technology. One unpleasant side-effect of requiring them is that they get stolen regularly in shady parts of town.
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They actually can't improve fuel efficiency. You need to have a sightly rich mixture in order to have enough leftover fuel in the exhaust to feed the reaction in the catalyst.
Stoichiometric air fuel ratio is 14.7 : 1 or a lambda of 1.0 IE every bit of fuel has sufficient oxygen to burn, or all the available oxygen has been used for combustion.
Typical three way catalysts operate around 0.993 to 0.997 lambda (the TWC window) so there is about 0.5 percent more fuel being put into the engine than it has the o
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Me neither.
The only way that could make sense is if, by reducing NOx (or whatever), the catalytic converter would make higher engine compression (or whatever) possible without increasing emissions, making for more efficient engines.
Is there an engineer in the house?
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Doesn't improve efficiency, however it allows us to continue to live.
This is not a smart remark. I remember those days. Los Angeles used to be cloudy, all the time. Today it's nothing like it used to be.
I'm in my mid 50s. They predicted I'd be dead by now if something wasn't done. Thank goodness for the Republicans taking the lead and creating the EPA. Reigned in a lot of bad stuff.
Died of a stroke (Score:3, Funny)
In other words, a blockage interfering with smooth and efficient flow. Seems appropriate.
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In other words, a blockage interfering with smooth and efficient flow. Seems appropriate.
On the other hand... A little back-pressure is actually a good thing. From Do vehicle exhaust systems need back pressure? [motorauthority.com]:
As the pulses move along, they generate an exhaust flow. If you have a restrictive exhaust system, it can generate back pressure that works against the positive flow of the exhaust gas that's trying to exit your vehicle. As Jason explains, a restrictive exhaust flow that builds up back pressure is only hurting the power your vehicle can deliver because it's not working efficiently.
However, a little back pressure is a good thing. In fact, it helps. The right size pipe is large enough to breathe well but small enough to create a high exhaust flow. Steps in the exhaust system also create negative pressure waves that travel back to the cylinder and help empty the cylinder of those gases.
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Stop spreading this BS. It's scavenging you want, NOT back pressure. Now excuse me as I go back to building my 94 MR2, 08 Z4M and 16 M4 race cars...
You're correct, but it seems it's the slight back pressure that creates (or supports) the negative pressure waves that cause scavenging. From the article:
Steps in the exhaust system also create negative pressure waves that travel back to the cylinder and help empty the cylinder of those gases.
If the exhaust pipe is too large (or missing), there won't be the conditions required to support any negative pressure and, therefore, no scavenging...
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Backpressure itself doesn't create or support the pressure waves. Backpressure is a negative side-effect of containing the existing pressure waves in a pipe in order to create constructive interference. Pressure waves are generated by the exhaust valves opening. Constructive interference is a product of these generated waves either merging with waves from adjacent pipes, or reflecting from the open end of a pipe. The optimal tuned exhaust is designed such that the advantage from the constructive interferenc
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Yes, what he said, and I'll add: dynamics. At different engine speeds, these waves, resonances, constructive / destructive interferences, all act differently. If engines could operate in a narrow RPM range, you could tune all of these things much more easily. And in fact, many "stationary" engines (that run generators, pumps, etc.) are tuned that way.
And: valve timing. It's critical to the whole system. Of course variable valve timing has been the "holy grail" of engine tuning. I know Koenigsseg has a
Watched the video you linked - it's bad (Score:3)
The text you read, and quoted a snipper of, is a summary of a short video. If you watch the video on that page, you'll see him explain "back pressure is bad!"
So what's up with that statement in the summary?
It's the same as this reasoning:
If people are starving, they won't let any food go to waste.
If there is way to much food, lots of food will go to waste.
Therefore, just a little bit of food being wasted indicates that the right amount of food is being produced. No waste at all would indicate people are s
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Amen. People have the causation all mixed up. Backpressure is an undesirable drawback *caused by* containing exhaust gases for a certain purpose such as pulse tuning or noise mitigation. Backpressure does not *cause* any positive benefit, and thus it is beneficial to minimize it.
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In some situations people find a car to run better with backpressure. Only thing I know and can reason (as I wrote above) is valve timing is optimized for some amount of backpressure. Remove the backpressure and you may "scavenge" too much, pulling out some good air-fuel mix at the end of the exhaust interval. And, as some have noted, you may cause pressure wave reflections that may really mess with things during valve overlap (too much or not enough scavenge.)
Time for a new cam to go with those headers
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You must really hate the planet earth don't you.
Let's laugh at the guy who invented technology that has reduced smog so we can all breath.
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The major inventions that have contributed to reducing smog are the PCV system and vapor recovery system. No more dumping raw hydrocarbons and blow-by into the atmosphere.
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Ah, you weren't alive in the 1970s, or at least not aware of contamination. You've never had the joy of driving behind a vehicle emitting a stinking cloud of black smoke in heavy traffic, you really missed out. If you had lived somewhere that people were still driving older vehicles in the late '70s and early '80s you'd remember vividly what cars were like before the catalytic converters became mandatory.
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a vehicle emitting a stinking cloud of black smoke in heavy traffic
Way out of tune. Just drag it into a garage and have it fixed. Yeah, it took annual emissions checks to twist people's arms into doing this.
Ah, you weren't alive in the 1970s
I have a '79 gray market Porsche with no cat. There was a loophole (now closed) that allowed imports so long as they complied with mandated emissions levels. So, throw it on a dynamometer, get my passing certificate and I'm good to go. Another loophole exempted cars with low displacement engines. So you could drive something like a first gen Honda Civic with no cat and
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So you don't know that people drive ol-hunk-a-junk cars because they don't have any money? What's it like to have never experienced poverty, or been around it much? Personally I think my life is richer for having grown up in the lower classes and having been desperately poor at several times in my life, but YMMV.
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The sweet spot for driving hunk-o-junk cars in terms of low cost is probably around 10 to 20 years old. Anything older gets really expensive to maintain and is the domain of the wealthy or really good mechanics. Over 20 years old, what you have is either food for the crusher or becoming a classic. In the latter case you are better off selling to a collector, taking the cash and buying newer used.
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I heard his body was stuffed into a waste-gas flare incinerator for disposal.
*automotive* catalytic converters (Score:2)
More fuel efficient? (Score:1)
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All else being equal they make the efficiency of an otherwise unchanged engine worse for the reasons you mentioned. But all else is not equal. What comes out the the tailpipe is very different allowing an engine to be run in a very different way due to emissions now having a completely different makeup.
E.g. you'd not even remotely get diesels as fuel efficient as todays to even pass the 90s era emission standards without a catalytic converter. They would generate too much NOx in the process. Treating the em
Probably saved more lives than Christiaan Barnard. (Score:2)
Back in the late 60's and early 70's it was normal for US cities to look like this [wikimedia.org] or this [wikimedia.org]. I remember that time. If you were driving you could gauge your approach to a city beyond the horizon by the brown cloud looming over it -- the product of unburned hydrocarbons and NOx which are now largely removed by catalytic converters.
Air quality improvements save over 200,000 lives annually in the US compared to the 1975 baseline. They've also improved the quality of life for people living in and around cities,
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Another unsung hero is Clair Cameron Patterson, a geochemist who finally analyzed how prevalent Lead was in the environment due to leaded gasoline. He was trying to get accurate Uranium-Lead dating of materials, and had to go to enormous lengths to keep his samples from being contaminated. It was his research that lead (if you'll pardon the pun) to realizations about the pervasiveness of TEL in the environment. The elimination of leaded gasoline is probably single-handedly responsible for the significant dr
Did it prolong the gas car age? (Score:2)
The real cause of death... (Score:2)
At first it appeared to be a stroke, but when they operated, surgeons found that someone had stolen his aorta.
According to Primer... (Score:1)
My Dad SOLD Mooney's converter to Detroit! (Score:2)
In early 1970 my Dad (and the rest of us) were transferred from New Jersey to Michigan so he could sell Mooney's converter to the Detroit automakers. We encountered a late blizzard on the way. At one truck stop I snorted hot chocolate out my nose. Which was pretty much the funniest part of the entire ordeal.
From a performance perspective, the Englehard converter was far and away the best. But it lacked a bit when it came to endurance and durability. First was the mechanical system needed to support the