Everything is politics, and after blaming the previous administration for higher fuel prices, the current one is struggling to explain why the massive increase in the cost of diesel fuel isn’t their fault, and doing so on the eve of an important midterm election. The solution being floated is a temporary diesel ban, which would probably lower the cost of the fuel for a while for some people, but at what cost?
The Morning Dump this morning will shed its usual hopefulness temporarily as I pause to consider what could happen if the pursuit of a short fix leads to long term problems. Not that it would be bad for everyone. An export ban could be great for China, and the timing is wonderful now that China’s President is en route to the United States. In addition to meeting with American political leaders, GM CEO Mary Barra will reportedly also be in attendance.
While no reasonable person wants a military conflict between the US and anyone (especially China), GM Defense is ready to supply some more trucks to the Department of War, just in case. Speaking of China, our neighbors to the north are gearing up to send a lot more business that way considering they no longer trust the US as a partner.
The Price Of Lowering Diesel Prices Could Be A Global Recession And A Stronger China
The chart above comes from my buddy FRED, and it shows just how high diesel fuel prices have gotten. Going all the way back to 1994, the price of diesel has never been above $6 a gallon on average, and it’s now closer to $7 a gallon. Not great.
While this is a real and present risk for people who use a lot of diesel–farmers in particular–this is viewed as a major political problem for the GOP. As Nate Silver observes, the places where diesel price shock is the strongest also happen to be places where Democrats seem to be polling better than usual:
In Iowa, for instance, the combined price shock is 62 percent instead of 48 percent. It’s 63 percent in Nebraska, 62 percent in Michigan, and 61 percent in Kansas and Texas. And the diesel adjustment moves Maine and Alaska up substantially, to 54 percent from 42 and 30 percent, respectively. What these states have in common, of course, is that they all have competitive Senate races.
This is one of those cases where the charts pretty much tell the story, so I’ll leave it at that. But it helps to explain why Democrats’ polling has been especially strong in the heartland.
What’s a ruling political party supposed to do about it? The global energy crisis was caused by President Trump’s ongoing war with Iran, and the main reason why regular gasoline prices aren’t worse is because of China’s decision to use its strategic reserves to, seemingly, avoid creating a global recession. Remember that, because it’s going to come back again quickly.
I’m not going to get into the complexity of crack spreads, gravity, et cetera, but just be aware that the amount of diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, or other petroleum products you get from a refinery depends on what kind of raw crude is going into it. Right now, the United States produces a lot of diesel, and it does so for both internal and external customers, and many of those internal customers happen to be farmers.
You can see where this is going. There’s a growing movement to put a temporary export ban in place, as Politico notes:
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) posted over the weekend that high diesel prices are “KILLING FARMERS INCOME” and urged Trump to “put an embargo on diesel exports like presidents in the 70s put embargoes on ag products bc food prices were inflated.”
Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa), who is running for the Senate, called Monday morning for using “every option at our disposal to provide some relief from high prices,” including suspending diesel exports and the federal gas tax.
Would it lower the cost of diesel in some agricultural states? Yeah, probably. That’s the good news. The bad news is everything else that happens when you attempt a quick export ban. That bit about the ’70s embargoes on agricultural products Sen. Grassley mentions is interesting because this paper from the University of Illinois makes the case that this ultimately hurt producers in the US:
The embargo raised questions about the U.S. as a reliable supplier of staple commodities. In particular, Japan responded to its over-reliance on the U.S. by introducing the concept of food security and initiating policies to address it. Maybe the most far-reaching of these actions began in 1974 when the Japan International Cooperation Agency was formed and began a large-scale investment in the development of the Cerrado region in Brazil for soybean production; underway from 1979 to 2011 it helped push Brazil into a leading export role in the world soybean market (Akihiko 2017). Also in response, the European Community—another major customer of U.S. soybean exports—began dishing out large subsidies to increase production of oilseed crops in Europe (Madigan 1994).
As energy economist Philip Verlger points out, the possible outcomes of this are far worse than merely lowering your potential customers over time:
Initially, a diesel ban would send global prices skyrocketing. Today, the US exports around 1.4 million barrels per day to countries that require diesel imports. Our shipments may account for as much as 20% of the market. A ban could raise world prices by as much as 100%, given the fuel’s low price elasticity of demand.
Nations hit by the price increases would suffer economic recessions or worse. They would not forget the experience, just as Japan did not forget the soybean embargo.
Also, if you live on the East or West Coast there’s no great way to get you heating oil or diesel fuel from American producers so, as Marketplace reports, the global increase in prices would make things way way worse for you:
Diesel is a global market, and if the U.S. pulled its exports out of that market, “you would see global prices for diesel skyrocket,” said Bob McNally, founder and president of Rapidan Energy Group.
That would immediately push prices up on the East and West Coasts, where most diesel is imported. Even though the U.S. produces plenty of diesel, there’s no good way to transport it across the country.
If you’re worried about how I’m going to heat up my place, please don’t. I have the ability to use natural gas instead of heating oil, which has been the way better choice lately. Other than farmers and Republicans in the middle of the country, who else benefits from this?
China. Verleger goes onto add this little tidbit:
The world’s energy consumers would also respond as Japan did, in this case turning away from the US to suppliers of renewable energy capital, primarily China, and pursuing an energy agenda and infrastructure that do not depend on the whims of an outside country. US energy exporters would see markets shrink, just as American farmers did when Brazil became the world’s go-to soybean supplier.
From a global perspective, maybe this isn’t a bad thing for the environment. A lower reliance on the US as an energy producer doesn’t necessarily mean more oil production in China. Rather, it means that countries start to adopt policies similar to what’s happening in Australia, and invite more Chinese cars, more Chinese solar power, and use less oil.
Mary Barra To Reportedly Have Dinner With China’s President
I will probably be talking about China a lot given that a delegation from the country will be meeting in Washington this week, including a state dinner at the White House tomorrow. According to Reuters, GM CEO Mary Barra is going to be there.
Will any other car execs be elbowing up to the buffet? Maybe not:
Barra will not be joined by Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa, who is out of the country, two sources said. Ford declined to comment on if CEO Jim Farley would attend the dinner. The automaker recently came under fire from US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy for its business partnerships with Chinese companies.
It’s an odd spot for Farley, given Sec. Duffy got so mad at Ford for working with China, and then the White House invites you for a nosh with Xi Jinping. I wonder what they’re going to talk about…
GM Defense Scores $700 Million More For Enclosed Trucks
GM Defense’s Colorado-based Infantry Squad Vehicles seem to be growing in popularity with the US military, and the company just got a new order to modify the vehicles for colder weather operations.
The $697.7 million modification brings GM Defense’s contract with the government to make vehicles “cumulative face value” to $915,597,166, the military agency said Sept. 21.
Erica Mitchell, a spokeswoman for GM Defense, told the Detroit Free Press that the company is the prime contract holder for the ISV-Utility variant and the winch solution.
The engineering changes in the updated contract include the addition of a windshield, heater and defrost system as well as options for a full crew enclosure kit.
I wonder where the vehicles would need to go that’s cold?
Canada Trying To Make It Easier To Import From Asia And Europe
I don’t imagine there’s any future where Canada and the United States aren’t major trading partners, but let the lessons above be instructive about what the future could bring. Specifically, a future wherein the ongoing trade war encourages Canada to get closer to Asia and Europe.
A new proposal from the Canadian government would have the country invest in port infrastructure with a pretty obvious bent, as Bloomberg reports:
“It’s really inspired by this imperative to diversify our overseas markets, to diversify away from the United States,” Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon said in an interview, alluding to the tariffs and other trade disruptions imposed by US President Donald Trump.
“There’s a very discernible east-west pattern in this, when we talk about corridors,” he said.
Let’s just say we’ve met MacKinnon in a very Chinese time in his life.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Our own Peter is going to see Squeeze tonight, and while I’m on record stating that “Up the Junction” is the best Squeeze song, “Cool for Cats” is also pretty good.
The Big Question
When was the last time you’ve heard a car backfire? Have you ever had a car that backfires badly?
Top photo: DepositPhotos.com
When my dad installed the distributor gear 180 degrees out on his ’65 E-Type.
Whilst trying to get it to fire, the backfire just about exploded the two ‘bullet mufflers’ in the back of the car, and left my ears ringing for hours.
Backfires? Somewhat regularly in the winter when my neighbor is playing with his home-built hotrods. Personally, I don’t think I have ever had a car backfire.
When I was a kid in the mid 90’s I had an early squarebody that my dad and I converted from points to HEI ignition. The wiring wasn’t completely sorted out, sometimes it would randomly cut out.
On one occasion I was on the gas when it cut out, it kicked back in before it fully stalled and BAAAANG, huge backfire. Took a look later and one of the mufflers was completely blown open at the seam.
Question: if GM wants any government shouldn’t they change the name from GM Defense to GM War?
Since only the Department of Defense has a real budget under US Law, it might be risky for GM to do business with an imaginary War Department.
What if we just rename it with a Sharpie, and get Google to update it on the map?
That might only work for weather and bodies of water, but worth a try.
I DO like that idea, at least for hurricanes.
Hurricanes are big, they blow hard, make a mess of everything they touch and leave nothing but damage and misery in their wake.
Sound familiar?
The current zeitgeist requires them to change their name from General Motors to American Motors.
So General Motors China = American Motors China. I like it.
Donald Trump’s American Motors
TBQ: The vacuum hose to my Bug’s distributor slipped off one time. Thing sounded like a WRC car whenever I got off the gas. It also used to be that with my old, rusted out muffler, it’d go “BANG” whenever I shifted into second for the first time after starting it.
Ignoring pop and crackle tunes, I’ve heard plenty of backfires at Lemons races. Not many out in the real world.
I’m sure I’ve heard a random car backfire since then, but the last I can distinctly remember was my first car, a 1986 Plymouth Voyager with a 5-speed manual. You could get it to backfire in neutral by just hitting the throttle with a little pop, and if you did it down town with buildings on both sides of the street, it was ridiculously loud.
The Big Question: Not since pickup trucks switched to EFI.
In my youth, any farm boy worth his salt had a farm truck that was made mostly out of salt. These old farm trucks had carburetors and manual transmissions.
When a kid of the farm saw a good looking girl, they did the time honored mating call of
Put in the Clutch
Turn off the ignition
Stomp the gas quickly and as fast as possible while coasting
Turn back on the ignition
Dump the clutch.
The resulting backfire showed a giant red cloud behind the truck many times with a fine mist of exploded muffler internals. Which would draw the attention of the attractive female where they could call out the window with the traditional mating call of “Woo Wee!” and “Hey Baby!”
However, as these trucks finished turning into iron oxide, they were replaced with trucks with EFI and automatic transmissions which has sadly removed one of the biggest calling card of a young male farmer on the make.
A couple years ago, I thought I heard a backfire which brought me back to my youth. But it ended up being gunfire instead which was the traditional greeting between two drug dealers instead.
Last time I heard a backfire? When I was working on the 79 bird with my dad a few months back as we needed to fix timing and redo TDC as the dizzy was not put in correctly before.
My daily will give a single POP if I am hammering it all the way to redline and lift throttle quickly to do a fast shift, not that loud, but you can hear it. Any other driving style will not do it.
My track car will give some light pop sounds coming down from redline in a brake zone. Once again you have to be driving it hard and only at the upper rpm range.
My high school car had some carb issues and would do a pretty nasty loud backfire sometimes when coasting in gear. Scared the crap out of one of my classmates once and she thought her tire had blown when she was driving next to me.
the company just got a new order to modify the vehicles for colder weather operations.
We’re invading Canada, aren’t we?
I’m so tired of this timeline.
And it just feels like it’s being forcefed to feel normalized.
May the odds be ever in your favour.
Just don’t question why the trees are speaking French.
Greenland most likely. Maybe Trump will lost interest when he sees the new map and it’s not bigly yuge.
We’re going to be putting armed soldiers into Greenland at two old cold war bases to “protect” it. Of course, this is just a prelude to invading and taking the whole country.
Or the “agreement” with Denmark and Greenland is a ploy and we really are going to make Greenland the 51st state.
GM just got a new order to modify the vehicles for colder weather operations.
For Ukraine against Russia or for going into Russia itself?
Probably for Russia against Ukraine.
True Dat
It gets quite cold in Iran too.
I think he’s pushing for nukes there
Maybe, there were some lower yield nukes developed for afgan mountains but weren’t used.
Possibly
Belarus gets cold, i hear they have
oilpotashYep
Nah, it’s for Operation: Canadian Bacon.
Invasion to get real maple syrup.
Poutine.
Good choice
We have a small but loud contingent of mini bikers around us. Not the moped, but the non street variety. They will run those engines up on what can only be straight pipes and when they close off the throttle they pop super loud.
I had an 85 Cherokee Pioneer with the AMC 4 cylinder in college. It ran on 3 and if you revved it up without load on the engine it would backfire and puff smoke out the back. It was a 4 speed that I spent more on tires for than I paid for the car.
I assume we’re talking proper backfires and not shotgun tunes or legitimate anti-lag, I can’t think of the last time I heard a car backfire. Barring that was probably my supermoto before I gave up riding. It had TBI and was tuned on the lean side from the factory which was leaned more from the slip-on silencer. It would sound like a burble tune on decel whenever I’d crack the throttle.
Everything about why a diesel export ban is stupid makes sense except for the idea that we can’t deliver diesel to the coasts from the USA. The USA exports diesel from the gulf on tankers and sends those tankers across the Atlantic to Europe and across the Pacific to Asia. The East and West coasts get their diesel on tankers. It seems very logical that those tankers leaving the Gulf full of diesel could go to US ports instead of foreign ones.
The only problem with this logic is the Jone’s Act that makes it illegal for a foreign ship to deliver goods between two US ports but the Jones Act is also stupid protectionism and should have died about 100 years ago.
(The Jones Act requires cargo to be delivered between two US ports on a ship built in the USA, Owned by a US Citizen, Registered under the US Flag, and Crewed by US Citizens or permanent residents)
I think getting rid of the Jones Act temporarily isn’t the worst idea, honestly. I am a Jones Act Truther.
There is already a fleet of US-flagged Jone-act compliant tankers and barges that haul petroleum products up the East coast of the US to Portland, ME to feed the big pipeline to Canada. That oil could just as easily stay in the US if this nonsense were to come to pass.
And I would think there is a very simple end run around the Jones act for shipping from the Gulf anyway – stop in The Bahamas on the way. Problem solved.
Maybe that’s the goal of his game, to further hurt Canada.
If they shut off the return flow to Canada of refined product, I can only imagine that ends in either restriction or an export tariff on the base crude being piped south from Canada to offset.
It will be a complete shit-show all around. And the only loser will be us.
So it’s happening, obviously.
Was there ever any doubt?
It needs to go permanently.
Asking foreign vessels to transport the diesel that their owners are being iced-out from exporting?
Bold strategy Cotton, let’s see how it plays out.
I’m also curious as to how the operators of the Panama Canal will take it when you’re trying to get it to the west.
Ships are owned by private companies not countries. The name of the game is making a buck not foreign policy.
Do these companies operate in a host country? Then I imagine they would be bound by the laws of that country.
And if the argument is that they’re not bound by those countries as private entities, then couldn’t companies just ignore the US mandate and export anyways?
Most ships are legally based in host countries who’s entire business is hosting ships on the cheap and allowing the owners to dodge taxes. I really doubt Liberia or the Marshal Islands are going to get involved in international politics.
Fuel prices make everyone act a lil crazy. Hence the entire premise of this article.
The Jones Act is primarily about keeping a shipbuilding industry alive in the USA so that if there were some reason that we wanted to build a lot of ships fast, there would be shipyards and the institutional knowledge to do that.
The reality is that building a lot of ships fast in the case of a war where hundreds of ships would be needed isn’t really a thing because a war on that scale would be over before contracts could be sent out for bids.
I’m aware of the purpose of the Jones Act of 1920. It has failed to carry out the intended purpose.
As you said, the idea that we can suddenly turn out WWII levels of ships is unrealistic. Even in WWII we had to build the shipyards before ships. Right now my desk is sitting on the site of an old shipyard that cranked out 147 ships from 1942 to 1945.
Really all we need is Henry J. Kaiser and a willingness to have a 95% tax bracket like in the good old days
The funny thing is Kaiser wasn’t a shipbuilder before the war.
As to tax rates – nobody paid anywhere near that 95% tax rate and the write-offs available were huge. It also only applied to earned income so just like today wealthy business owners minimized salary and maximize payments though stock. Since we have had an income tax earned income and investment income has been treated very differently
Henry J Kaiser was pretty amazing at analyzing a complicated process and breaking it down. Hoover dam for example is allegedly still having its concrete setting but he finished it two years ahead of schedule. He adapted the Gantt chart into a massive, multi-tiered project management tool that revolutionized managing complexity. I personally think there are better ways of managing uncertainty, but for management of known processes, Henry J was simply amazing. He did the same thing for concrete( mix it in the truck en route and have ready to go off at exactly the right time.) and healthcare. Oh, and he made the jeep a commercial product.
I think that not being a shipbuilder was the secret to his success, much like Glock, not being a gun designer was the key to his success.
That tax stuff is true if you own a business. If you were in the arts, for example, you were screwed. That’s why so many movie stars and musicians got big tax problems. If you made a killing once every four or five years but nothing the rest of the time, that was even worse.
I once made a huge amount of capital gains but my earned income was peanuts. Due to a lock-in I immediately lost the capital gains, but had to pay the tax and get a credit for 92 years because earned income and capital gains are two different things.
So now that we agree that capital gains are treated very different from wages how is a 95% tax on wages like during WWII going to solve shipbuilding in the USA today?
As to artists, some were more savvy than others. You can read about Bob Hope being paid in oil company shares instead of cash because oil production had a special carve out that allowed 27.5% of gross revenue to be written off completely tax free forever. Bob also incorporated and combined his personal income with other business ventures (like that oil company) so all of his income was treated as corporate income.
Wasn’t there a threat to Panama over a Chinese company owning (part of?) it?
Maybe that’s on the 2027 timeline.
The Jones Act might have made sense back when the US actually built ships, but that hasn’t been for decades.
US builds 3-5 a year, Chine builds thousands.
Curiously, the Jones Act comes into play if you want to take a cruise that starts and ends in Hawaii.
The Norwegian ship Pride of America is the only one to do this, and is the only US-flagged & crewed ship in their fleet.
I guess the cruise ship passengers are the cargo?
Passengers or cargo makes no difference. It’s the ship itself that matters.
Same in the PNW. You don’t see a cruise leaving and returning to Seattle. It will either leave or return from Vancouver, BC.
I have friends currently on a cruise to Alaska. They left Seattle this past Monday. On the way back, they have a “mandatory foreign port call” in Victoria BC, the day before they arrive back in Seattle.
Now I understand what this whole “mandatory” thing is all about…
The Jones Act isn’t the only problem. The other problem, and the reason we’re having this discussion, is that far fewer ships full of oil are leaving the Persian Gulf nowadays.
That is a problem but not one related to the topic of how to get US refined diesel from the Gulf to the Coasts in the USA. Today the USA is still producing significantly more diesel than we consume every day.
Car that backfired badly : 1972 Mazda Rx-2. The engine had a “thermal reactor” as part of the exhaust manifold that was attempting to complete the burn of unburned fuel. To help with this, an air pump forced fresh air into the exhaust. To keep it hot enough, the trailing ignition was cut when the throttle was closed to provide more unburned fuel. This all sounds like a good way to get explosions in the exhaust and it was. I went through several “lifetime warranty” mufflers that were split right down the seam.
Same!!!!!! My Mom had this very car and you always knew when she got home! Hellfire, the whole neighborhood knew when she got home.
Sounds like those systems for keeping the turbo spinning off throttle.
Or old airplanes that didn’t have a throttle, just a switch to cut the spark. A friend rigged a switch to cut the spark for clutch less upshifts with WOT. Did it try to blow the exhaust system up? Yes, very much so.
The chemists i work with were joking the other day about how we could make a boatload if we make a molecular sieve to get the red dye out of the forbidden diesel. Maybe we should get on that as an ‘injector cleaner’ addititve.
Here or there i get a backfire from the highway by my apartment. Especially when the windows are open.
Apropos of nothing, got my shirts in the mail the other day. Super excited to test the stain resistance doing a knuckle and wheel bearing rebuild on my new Land cruiser this weekend
I grew up on a farm and it wasn’t until I was in my twenties that I realized diesel and gasoline weren’t naturally red.
Well I know one thing NOT to try:
https://saraichinwag.com/bleach-and-diesel
(I imagine though distillation would be the answer).
FWIW here is the 411 on at least one of the dyes used.
https://dayglo.in/images/pdf/solvent_new/solvent-red-164.pdf
If so you might also try photobleaching:
“Low Photostability: Studies have indicated that Solvent Red 19 and Solvent Red 164 are unstable when exposed to UV-A irradiation and temperature, leading to photodegradation.”
https://pdf.benchchem.com/401/Comparative_analysis_of_the_photostability_of_different_solvent_red_dyes.pdf
Wait, there’s a way to manipulate diesel prices to both pander to a smallish group of likely supporters AND inflict massive pain on the vast majority of the nation’s population centers? That’s what this administration would call a win-win, and I expect to hear more about it any day now…
This will never make COTD because politics, but this is definitely COTD.
Exactly what I was thinking.
I didn’t expect all of this hugely winning to feel so bad.
Liberation Day Part Deux
Backfiring? I live near a connector road with moderate traffic, and I hear backfire semi-regularly. I can’t see the road, so I’m not sure what vehicles they are. We get a lot of classics around, but I don’t think it’s them (I’ve driven behind a few, and they don’t pop). I’ve seen some shabby Subarus and Audis that tend to lend themselves to poor tuning.
Sorry unrelated comment:
The lead photo of gas prices has the 9/10 of a cent (Diesel 649 9/10). I haven’t seen a sign like that around here in years. And didn’t we in the US stop using cents for everything anyway and I know I heard about the 9/10 of a cent business before but I thought it was stupid then.
Of course, that sign may mean 649 dollars and 9/10th of a dollar. If so, then I apologize.
Literally every gas station sign I can think of still shows 9/10, even the digital LED versions.
https://historyfacts.com/us-history/fact/gas-prices-include-nine-tenths-of-a-cent-due-to-a-90-year-old-law/
Apparently it’s a holdover from a 1930’s law that the gas stations continue to follow because it makes them more money.
It has been a long time. I blew a 7 in split in my muffler with a backfire after I flooded my 1969 Ford Galaxie and it finally started. It was really loud after that. That was while hiking with the French exchange student at the end of a very rural mountain road in the spring of 1987.
Diesel export ban sounds like a terrible idea so I guess that means it is 100% going to happen.
Bad for blue states on the coasts, bad for the country’s global trade prospects, but good for Republicans running for Senate in the farm states. 110% going to happen.
Yep, short term gain with no regard for the future is the way!
It’s not a bug, it’s a
featureparty platform!Oh, they have regard for the future. That’s why the biggest medicaid cuts don’t hit until after the mid-terms.
If, somehow, they remain in complete control of the country after the mid-terms, expect a repeat of this in Fall of 2028 when they’ll do something else stupid to appease their base that is suffering from the fallout of what they’re doing now. It will continue to make things worse for everyone, but society has such a short attention span anymore that most people will forget that the problem they’re “solving” was caused by them in the first place.
The stupidity will continue until the voters stop voting for them.
That’s a real win-win when you put it like that.
But Biden!
*Picard Facepalm*
Haven’t you heard? Zelensky is the new Biden. Diesel prices are all his fault because he’s blowing up all the Russian oil refineries!
But aren’t Russia’s oil exports under strict sanctions anyway, you say? Shut up you!
That and the kremlin banning exports of diesel and gas bc of the refineries going boom.
re: Backfires
Oddly a lot. There’s a certain corner of car culture in this area where backfire during throttle lift is a thing. It grates in my ears like metal on pavement as I imagine it is seriously screwing up the car’s valves in the process. The only other time recently was when I was getting my 1800ES back running with two injectors not doing their job (didn’t know that at the time).
I hear cars with ‘burble tunes’ every day. I also go through a tunnel twice a day and those idiots love to hear their car backfire in a tunnel.
Ah yes, the ‘crackle tune’. There’s one Golf GTI in particular that passes my house on a regular basis, to the point I can recognise the car. Dickhead.
(Of course, it might not be a GTI, it might just have had GTI badges added)
Mind you, a few times I’ve had big exhaust leaks, and probably enjoyed the ridiculous noise a lot more than anyone around me…
On my morning commute I’m frequently stuck in traffic with the guy with the ‘crackle tune’ or whatever on his WRX…leaves a gap, surges forward, lift off….pop pop pop. Rinse, repeat for mile…every morning.
That’s the worst part. Once they get the tune, they absolutely cannot drive at a steady speed.
My 89 firebird is doing something similar currently and it annoys the hell out of me everytime I left off the throttle I get popping in the exhaust because of excessive fuel. I am not anywhere near a good tuner but have cut fuel back on the rear cylinders as the TPI style fuel injection systems are known for not giving enough air to the back cylinders. Really need to bring it to a good tuning shop because yeah still running way to rich. Holley says their HP computers auto-tune but yeah only to an extent. Also which I had gotten headers with dual O2 sensors not just the one.
I am no expert, but I found when dealing with my ancient FI that LEAN fuel/air can also cause backfire. At least in these B20E engines.
Yeh some of these crackle tunes have gotten ridiculous, like gunshot levels of loud echoing off buildings, I’ve enjoyed some stupid loud cars in my day but that sh*t is just obnoxious, not even sure how it’s enjoyable as the driver.
That would be last night. When a neighbor was tuning the carbs on their 1966 Galaxie. I’ve made my riding mower backfire before on shutdown. Shut it down with a low throttle position. Scorches the grass pretty well.
As usual, electrify all the things.
A riding mower or snowblower backfiring on shutdown is certainly a great way to test your cardiac health. I guess that’s probably from the spark cutting out before the last bit of gas is pulled through the carb?
Sounds likely.