Stalwart is the perfect word to describe a 3F. Ha!
I love Dinosaur National Monument. On my list for a return... so beautiful!
'Um.. is this the right room?' Nuub Troopy owner enters, crickets and stares ensue ;)
- Thread starter RamseyTroopy
- Start date
This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.
Stalwart is the perfect word to describe a 3F. Ha!
I love Dinosaur National Monument. On my list for a return... so beautiful!
P.M. sent
Will Van
GOLD Star
OK...easiest place to reference the relevant EPA regulations regarding motor swaps involving foreign-market motors not covered by EPA certification is in the memo linked below, which comes directly from the EPA itself. See in particular paragraph 7 under "A. Federal Law", which says:
"Another situation recently brought to EPA's attention involves the offering for sale of used foreign-built engines. These engines are often not covered by a certified configuration for any vehicle sold in this country. In such a case, there is no way to install such an engine legally. EPA has recently brought enforcement actions against certain parties who have violated the tampering prohibition by performing illegal engine switches."
Here's the link if you want to read the whole thing:
Regarding the claim that:
"A NON-EPA certified engine simply means that it has not been certified by the EPA and may be subject to emissions testing (where applicable). Now, if it fails the emissions test, then it WILL need to be brought into compliance (sometimes at considerable expense)."
Well, yeah, emissions testing is part of getting a motor certified by the EPA. But it's nowhere near as simple as that. The process is spelled out here, again, in a link directly from the EPA itself:
Certification and Fuel Economy for Light-Duty Passenger Cars and Trucks | US EPA - https://www.epa.gov/ve-certification/certification-and-fuel-economy-light-duty-passenger-cars-and-trucks
Go ahead, dig into some of the requirements. It's a hoot. Not the province of mortal men. You're not going to do it.
Now, all that said, the OP has options if he wants to swap in a diesel.
Option 1: Swap in the diesel, register it outside the Colorado Emissions Program Area so that he doesn't need to have the vehicle inspected by CO authorities and take his chances with the EPA. Not a huge risk. I used to live in Estes Park. Saw a lot of elk, but never saw any Federal Agents snooping around looking for diesel swaps.
Option 2: Just live with the motor he has. Nothing wrong with it. No worries.
Option 3: Swap in the diesel before he has the vehicle inspected by CO authorities and tell them it's the original motor. It might work.
Oh, and this:
is kinda funny. There's no Federal Exemption for "off road use only". It's a myth.
All of this talk of non-US motor swaps being illegal is regarding FEDERAL law, BTW. STATES are all over the place on this. Some don't care at all, some (like the Front Range of CO) are getting kinda picky about it. The reality is, the likeliest place for the Federal Government to notice that you've tampered somehow with the "original unmodified condition" of the imported vehicle is US Customs, when the car is being imported. After that, even though it's still illegal in the eyes of the Feds, no one is likely to be looking for it in most cases.
OK....Having derailed the OP's thread pretty much completely by now, I'm gonna bow out of any more "what's legal, what's not" talk and let the poor guy shower love on his Troopy.
Great intel here. But to me, the EPA/engine-swap discussion is mostly theoretical.
Yes, it is illegal to swap a non-EPA-compliant-imported engine into an imported truck. That would break the federal law of the Environmental Protection Agency.
But as a practical matter, how the hell is the EPA ever going to know? That information is so esoteric, even the experts on this forum dedicated to Toyota trucks have trouble keeping up:
“No, no, no - The 1HZ diesel engine wasn’t offered on the 75 series until 1990. Not 1989. And it was never offered in the USA, only in Canada, you peasant.”
What EPA authority is ever going to know that level of detail? Let alone, be able to recognize it inside a random truck whistling down the highway? Once the vehicle is inside the United States, the EPA does not have the organizational structure, manpower, or resources to ensure that every vehicle on the road is EPA compliant under the circumstances it was purchased. What are they going to do, set up random roadway checkpoints and do EPA emissions testing while having an expert on hand to determine if the engine in the vehicle was originally equipped from a foreign country for the year model in question? That sounds like a very remote scenario and a colossal waste of resources.
State and local municipalities have their own regulations regarding emissions. Some of them align with the EPA requirements. But that is the only emissions oversight involved once the vehicle is in the USA.
@gilmorneau alluded to all of this in "Option 1" above - Once you get the truck into the USA, you can take a calculated risk, swap to whatever engine you want, register it in the appropriate location, get it inspected without any emissions testing, and drive the piss out of it. Voilà.
For example, in Texas, for trucks 25 years or older, the inspection is safety only. There is no emissions inspection/testing. It could be a locomotive engine for all they care. As long as it passes the safety inspection, they're not looking under the hood or sniffing the tailpipe.
All that being said, where you might run into trouble is if you are running a business that specializes in swapping foreign-market-non-EPA-compliant engines into imported vehicles. That might raise some eyebrows with the EPA.
Just my $0.02. Sorry to hijack.
Either way, that is an awesome Troopy! Any more plans with it? Anything you really like about it so far? Anything you dislike?
Last edited:
theglobb
SILVER Star
I can attest to this, no matter how much of a load I put in my old 62 it would chug along just the same, whether it was 3000lbs of quikrete in the back, or 17 teens shoved into it from our school to the track field... Oh, and the gas mileage stayed at a steady 9mpg no matter how much it had in it or how hard you drove it haha.
The gas mileage statement is so true!
Nothing I do gives me any better gas mileage... but then again nothing makes it worse.
- Thread starter
- #67
You all would have had a good laugh watching me do my ocd milage calc on the UT trip.. converting from Km to Mi... I'm sure I f'd it up because at one point (after Wyo...) I figr'd I was getting 11.7MPG!! (I should note that i was an Art major..) If there was a bump it was probably due to that lovely downhill into the SLC basin!
- Thread starter
- #68
For the mo' I plan to use pretty much as is while I see 'what do I REALLY need'.
(It got an OME leaf upgrade along with the ARB winch bar so, that's good to go)
I am thinking of chasing down and MCGuyyver-ing in a second gas tank somehow..
Oh, and I had built two trays for my Taco that also fit perfectly into the Troop for all the hard gear (Tools, Reco, camp stuffs) And My truck bed mattress pad fits right on top.
