3 replies to this topic

[rexy]

Recently I have gone through the process of getting a post 2010 full size sedan engineered in Victoria.

 

It was an initially daunting process and I found out a few things along the way that might be helpful to others.

 

I should call this The Good, The Bad and The Ugly…

 

Lets start with the Ugly.

 

I bought the car in question cause I thought it might be fun to have a modern version of the overpowered classics but with mod cons like air and power steering, ABS, big brakes airbags etc. I had seen it advertised for some time with a slowly falling price as the sellers hopes met reality. It reached a point where it was cheap enough to take a gamble on.

 

The car is a factory high performance V8 fitted with a Whipple supercharger amongst other odds and ends. The seller was honest about none of it being engineered and it was an as is, where is type of deal. He had receipts for over 30K of mods, only completed a few thousand Ks ago on a very low KM car.

 

So we did the deal and here’s where the “fun” started. 

 

I contacted the business who had done all the work. Worst experience in recent times. The business principal said he couldn’t discuss the car due to “customer confidentiality”. WTF

 

So I went and visited with the car where after a terse conversation he told me there was no way the car would ever pass engineering and that I was an idiot to buy it off his long term customer…. Utterly unhelpful and downright rude.

 

I later discovered in conversations with others that this is not an unusual experience when dealing with this business.

 

Fortunately my usual mechanic had engineered a personal vehicle and gave me a recommendation for the person he used. So I went and saw him and he was very helpful. Had a look at the documents I had and gave the car a once over.

 

The list of requirements was quite short.

 

It needed to pass noise testing, brake testing, emissions testing, weigh bridge ticket and dyno run showing its power output. No doom and gloom there. He was a bit cagey about the emissions test but did suggest that Euro 6 cats would likely be needed and gave a recommendation for someone to do the emissions testing that was known to be helpful.

 

At this point I made the mistake of contacting the original modifying business for help regarding tuning to pass emissions who said “we have never tuned a car to pass emissions or turn power down”. Most unhelpful CANT I've ever met. Let’s call that The Bad. My Bad.

 

Emissions Testing is not cheap at $1400 each time. I figured it was worth making it a one and done adventure. But who to get to help get the car in shape?

 

The engineer wanted the part number of the supercharger fitted so I rang Whipple and found a legend. He was the most helpful person I have talked to in a long time. It turns out I am far from the first person to contact him about dealing with the CANT and was able to give me a few contacts who have installed and helped engineer their product.

 

He also added that the Whipple kits are emissions legal certified in the USA if fitted as instructed with their starter flash tune…even in California.

 

So I contacted HPF in Dandy who confirmed they had done this before, even on some very modified setups.

 

Before I left it with them I spent some exhaust system money on ceramic Euro cats and making it very quiet. It has factory big brakes so no worries there.

 

HPF handled the rest and everything passed without incident. Done the first time. This was definitely The Good!

 

 

I cant imagine I could have done it cheaper myself by doing all the other running around.

I would 100% do it again this way if I had another car to do.

 

 

[nanbar]

I feel your pain.

[rexy]

You know, at the end of the day it all turned out good. Its got its blue plate so no hassles with the fuzz if they get interested.

The process isn't really that expensive compared to other car related activities - paint and panel certainly wins that competition.

 

The only money I could have saved would have been the cost of seeing the first engineer.

[axistr]

Good one Rexy, I'm glad it went through reasonable easy. There are a lot of owners out there that modify their cars without giving one thought on engineering it or the safety of other road users. The engineers are there for a reason and I'm glad you went to the hassle of getting it certified so it's now legal.

 

Many people think that supercharging will wreck emissions, but this isn't so. Adding forced air can clean up most engines, and good tuners can get them to run cleaner than normally aspirated engines, not all but most owners just won't outright performance and tell the tuning company to go all out and emission regulations are ignored. However, it's the added torque that needs to be scrutinized and most engineers will carefully look at the chassis structure and power to ratio charts listed by each state and work within their regulations. Generally, a performance increase of between 10 to 15 percent is achievable before you have to do chassis modification. After that you need to apply for an individually constructed motor vehicle classification. If you stick with the factory tyres than you can only load up the chassis so much, but we all want wider tyres to fill up the rear guards adding more traction and further punishing the chassis to breaking point. 

 

A good engineer will be able to work out all the finer details and advise the best way to attack it, they will also list added parts or modifications needed adding extra strength where needed. Time and time again I have inspected vehicles that an engineer has listing all the current specks in the report. The next day the owners throw on a set of 20"x 345x25 wheels and tyres thinking that it's been fully engineered and 100% legal, think again. As I always say to the customers " nothing happens till something happens". Then you can find yourself in a pile of shit. I found most customers tell the authorities that the mechanic or engineer said its ok (throwing us under the bus) and by the way here is my engineering certificate. Most authorities are a wake up to this and will check with the listing on the report. Then your personally done and liable.