yet another new user on the scrounge

Hi all,

Having had a look through your site, hopefully you can either advise me which forum to use here or perhaps a different site that may be more appropriate.

I want to buy a cheap, boring, small engined car ~25yrs old. This seems to be easy and cheap enough.
Thinking along the lines of a Polo 1ltr ~1990.

Am having trouble finding out about the legal requirements of older cars. Emissions, euro regs, modifications etc. By modifications, I mean unavoidable ones when original parts are not available. Def not into performance mods.

Where would be a good place to research or ask these sort of questions?
Understand that insurance is always a separate and often complex issue, looking to investigate that separatly.

Thanks in advance
ss

Hello and welcome to the site,

The legal requirements? Emmisions will depend on the age of the car and using aftermarket parts isn't a problem. Over in mainland Europe they have different rules.

Anything more specific you want to question and I am sure we can help you out?

~Lee

Hi Lee,

Thanks for the reply.

I would like to DIY a fuel injection system. Hoping that by adding necessary sensors I can junk the carb, build my own controller and save some fuel. Looking to reduce power rather than gain it.

Excluding the insurance issue, would this be a problem legally?

Thinking of a pre 1990 car - is it correct Euro1 didn't apply until 1992?

Thanks again for the advice

sam

That seems a bit beyond my knowledge to be honest. But I know of guys Turbo and putting EFI on VW Camper engines. So I can't see there being an issue.

~Lee

Hi Lee,

Thanks for the reply.

I'm having difficulty resolving this.

Leaving the insurance issue completely alone for now....

It seems fuel systems have to be approved to Euro (1,2,3,4,5) starting in 1992 (1991?). This suggests I can 'create' my own on older vehicles but I cant verify this.

If a vehicle from before the regs has a CAT and injection - perhaps I then cannot modify this but if it has a carb perhaps I can?

There must be some very grey areas as this is not subject people want to talk about. Perhaps they are worried about making the situation worse by drawing attention to their personal interpretation or implementation?

Currently I'm considering doing these mods under the cover of an LPG conversion. This simplifies the insurance as everything that I would change would be part of a LPG conversion. I would not fit petrol injectors - just gas but I'm stuck on throttle position sensor.

Ideally, the car would have single point petrol injection already.

Thanks for your time & help,

If anyone comes across info on this - please let me know.
Keith

I have had quotes for my p5b rover v8 and she's on carbs and can easily go to LPG conversion. Doesn't need to be injection. Will dig out a web address if this would help

Thanks rover, but thats not quite what I'm trying to do.

I appreciate LPG Can be used for carb or injection systems and have done so.
An interest in software and electronics means I would like to create my own injection system for a petrol carb car. I'm thinking of a lightweight version of the megasquirt.
The reason for injecting LPG rather than petrol is the insurance company tell me they would see such a system as an LPG modification rather than a custom engine management system and would not load the policy for this.

What I'm having difficulty finding out is how such modifications affect C&U regs for vehicles pre-dating the Euro1 fuel regs (1992?). It seems that definitive answers are not possible and I will probably just proceed whilst keeping my head down.

Thanks for the reply.

SS