Interesting to see it all laid out in simple form.
Senator Muskie’s 1970 clean air act required new vehicles to have serious NOX (smog) control.
Detroit’s answer was a combination of “It’s impossible”, to the application of catalytic converters.
Honda had to be taught what NOX was. That is where they started the race. NOX? WTF is NOX?
Honda redesigned the engine (in Waco Texas) to avoid NOX production. The Honda Civic CVCC engine broke combustion into 2 stages, a rich ignition stage and a lean burn completion stage. What ultimately became stratified combustion.
Then the fuel crisis followed, which wildly favored the high mileage Honda vehicles.
Fascinating history of different management styles. Honda being led by an Engineer who loved racing, and American Big 3 Auto, managed by business suits and attys.
GM’s chairman Richard Gerstenberg, stated publicly that the CVCC engine was fine for toy motorcycles, but had no applicability for American cars.
Honda’s president (Soichiro Honda), got miffed. He bought a Chevy Impala, installed a CVCC engine, maintained the same HP, and demonstrated the same NOX control via testing conducted in the EPA test facility where he then sent the modified impala. FACE!
One of the more informed comments.
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@JustClaude13
2 months ago (edited)
I had a 1976 Civic wagon. Great little car.
As I understand the history, there were actually two CVCC engines. The first, the Contoured Vortex Controlled Combustion, used a conventional two barrel carburetor to deliver a charge into the center of the intake in a controlled vortex pattern that kept most of the fuel near the spark plug. It worked perfectly, but was expensive and difficult to mass produce.
The second engine kept the name, but was a stratified combustion engine with a three barrel carburetor. It worked well enough, and was simple and cheap to build. That was the engine that went into the Civic.
Volkswagen took a different tack. They used a Bosch fuel injection system that sprayed a tightly controlled amount of fuel at the spark plug for the same effect with a proven technology.”
h/t JustmeTX