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Ok everyone focuses on better mpg, but is it possible to make your car cleaner? I know that by increasing fuel efficiency you are also reducing CO2 an other emissions.
But are there any mods specific to cleaning an already clean car?
just theoretical food for thought

I think the only way to truly make a car clean is to not use it and/or not buy new ones until you actually need one.

We live in such a wasteful society where we always have to have the latest and greatest and just throw last years models in the trash.

you´re right pretty wasteful
but interesting take i hadnt considered as making the car produces pollution, keeping it longer prevents that from being done as much
good thing i plan to keep my car till the wheels pop off

Yeah, given the technology of most conventional engines (which are inherently inefficient especially with respect to heat) it's pretty hard to find something that is not wasteful. As for making a clean car cleaner... not driving as already mentioned is probably the best solution short of stripping down your car, going Flintstones and relying on muscle power to get around town.

:) Yabba dabba doo

I'm sure there will be some breakthrus in the catalytic converter end of things in the not too distant future. It shouldn't be too difficult to convert CO or CO2 into something more manageable, or even useful for that matter. I for one wouldn't mind emptying out a canister of carbon (from my exhaust) derived substance every few months if it meant it wasn't going into the sky/ecosystem.
As for having the latest and greatest? Thats fashionable and is inherently illogical. "They" can go on all day about a product being A rated but if it breaks down within two years and is not worth repairing.....

ollie

I'm sure there will be some breakthrus in the catalytic converter end of things in the not too distant future. It shouldn't be too difficult to convert CO or CO2 into something more manageable, or even useful for that matter. I for one wouldn't mind emptying out a canister of carbon (from my exhaust) derived substance every few months if it meant it wasn't going into the sky/ecosystem. ...

I wish there was some reasonable basis for this optimism, but I don't yet see how it could fit into existing laws of physics. The raw stuff that needs to be collected runs 200+ pounds per fillup, even before it gets combined with something else to make it manageable.

I saw this on some ev forum, but a guy made a little trailer to push his car. The trailer just had an electric motor and some batteries.

Sometimes when I daydream I think about making something like that. Sure it's gonna be useless on any trips over 20miles, and it would be a little limited in how you could use it. I'm thinking you'd still have to accelerate with the ICE, and then you can just put the car in neutral and coast nice-on with the trailer pushing you on the freeway. 0.3GPH at 55mph is 183mpg. Do 8 miles on the freeway at 183mpg, plus 2 miles in crappy traffic getting 20mpg. If I'm doing my math right then that's 69.6mpg.

Only reason you'd have to do nice-on for the freeway cruising would be to have the brakes work. I don't think 2 or 3 pumps will last you the whole 8 mile trip. Though, again with ev's, they use some kind of electric pump to keep the power brakes working.

I plan to look into this more sometime in the next few weeks to figure it out, cause I'm sure when gas goes to $4/gal again, or $5, someone would be willing to spend $5k on a device that will more than triple their fuel economy.

There are a fair number of things that can be done. ecomoding.com has a lot of good material on how to aero mod a car. If you make aero modifications and reduce the weight you can use even less fuel, which makes it, of course, even more environmentally friendly.

My car certainly falls under the use it longer to keep a new one from having to be built. I'm at 183,000 and want to make it to 250,000 in this car.

Today the more important pollutant is CO2 as we need to act today to have a better air in 30 years... (other pollutants are important, but lowering them will improve the air quality very quickly, see London city toll and Chinese Olympics). I don't think someone will find a cheap, light and quick way to change the CO2 into an inert thing. Another solution could be to capture CO2 and deliver it at gas station, but my 60 L diesel tank would correspond to 160 kg of CO2, which is 14% of the curb weight :(

If your commute is small enough then swap your ICE with an electric motor and feed it with renewable sources (photovoltaic, wind turbine...) :cool: You can also aeromod your car as Basjoos did it (*).

I will not talk about changing anything in the exhaust as it's out of my competence and you may have problems to have your car pass the legal tests.

A 1999 Swedish pre-study shows that eco-drivers not only saved CO2, but also other pollutants (CO, NOx & HC) :
http://publikationswebbutik.vv.se/upload/2000/1999_165E_impact_of_ecodriving_on_emissions_and_fuel_consumption.pdf
but this study shows that you can save gas and generate more HC and CO at the same time if you have an history of heavy foot, see chapter 4.4 page 36 (28 in top of pages) of the pdf.

The rear of the scenic, above the exhaust, was rapidly black before we eco-drive my wife and I. Since we are eco-driving it stays cleaner longer, we are also using ultra low-sulfur diesel since June while it's mandatory in Europe only since 1st of January.

My way to pollute less is to drive smarter and to do maintenance.

Denis.

(*) You can currently vote for your preferred project on ecomodder.com : http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/vote-january-mod-month-7014.html