EPA Shuts Down my Favorite Dyno Shop

[fastg]

Drove over to Absolute Proformance in Finksburg MD, just to start planning the winter upgrades. Shop will be closed by the end of the month. EPA gave John a choice, pay massive fines or shut up shop. The consider every vehicle with a 17 digit vin a road car, so every car he has tunes or modified is in violation of Federal Clean Air act. This is a major blow as the guy really understood Honda engine and tuning them. I guess they are one be one shutting down all the shops in MD. 

 

Graham 

 

 

[Croc]

 

Not surprising - the EPA have been gradually taking out all the sellers of performance tuning products and it follows that dyno shops would be next given their connection to that market.   

[JohnCh]

Good Road & Track article from last year on this subject:  https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a40849184/inside-a-tuning-shop-when-the-epa-comes-knocking/

 

-John

[MV8]

Sometimes it is better to just deal with what they claim to have than to give them more to find (as well as all those clients), even if failure to provide these records is another gotcha.

 

Video is not about regulatory CPs but food for thought....

 

 

[wdb]

On the one hand, "not legal for road use" has been on a lot of products for a long time, and there has been a lot of nod-nod wink-wink activity going on. The diesel folk took it to an extreme with their rolling coal shenanigans, one of which I saw occur just last weekend.

 

On the other hand, if a tuner can improve a vehicle's performance while simultaneously keeping it within applicable clean air laws, I can't see where there is a case to be made. I had a <cough> tune on my <cough> <cough> years ago and it passed emissions easily. There were no switches I could flip or flaps I could move to cause the vehicle to go in and out of compliance. I fail to see a violation there.