I'm new to this forum, but could use some help. I'm rebuilding my 225 Slant Six from my 1970 Dodge Dart Custom. I'd like to keep it as close to original as I can. I'm pretty sure the car was bought in California when it was new.

My question is that I have a little box called a Carter Emissions Reduction Kit. I've seen one post on the forums back in 2002 where a person mentioned the kit, but nothing I've seen has explained what it does? It's an electrical box that also seems to operate a vacuum switch. I also have a temp probe that when I bought the car was electrical taped to the upper radiator hose.

Anyone know what this thing does? I even have a full 1970 Dodge Dart OEM service manual and I still don't know what it's suppose to operate.

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2015 Dodge Dart GT (Daily Driver)
2006 Dodge Charger Daytona, Top Banana #3874 of 4000 (lots of fun)
1970 Dodge Dart Custom 225 Slant Six, Auto, A/C (good car, engine rebuild)

Welcome on the board. Tune-up parts and technique suggestions in this thread. Get the three books described in this thread.

As for the Carter box and temperature probe: take them off and throw them away. It is not original equipment; it was installed as part of a sloppily-conceived nightmare of a California law requiring the retrofitment of aftermarket NOx emission controls to cars not originally so equipped. There was a list of devices approved by the state, and the law stated that such a device would be installed or vehicle registration would be denied. The devices caused cars to run poorly, overheat, and get poor mileage. Drivers who removed the devices were smacked with stiff penalties when the cops would pull them over in random roadside spot-checks. Amazingly (or not), even though the law was eventually repealed, those cars that had been required to have a retrofit device installed were still required to have a retrofit device installed. I'm not sure how the requirement was determined, but it led to some really dumb results: If your '66 Dart happened to have been required to have a retrofit device, you were legally stuck with it. So was its next owner, and every subsequent owner. Another identical '66 Dart might not have been required to have a device. No real rhyme or reason. And the stupidity remained long after the repeal. There was a really good writeup on it about 20 years ago in the WPC News, which unfortunately is not online, about a guy who bought a nice '68 Newport (I think it was) in Virginia and drove it to California, where before being allowed to get license plates he had to hunt down and install an approved retrofit kit -- even though the law had long before been repealed and none of the kits was still in production. He described how the car went from an illegal quick-starting, smooth-running, reasonably economical machine to a legal sputtering, stalling, inefficient clunker.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Some rare emissions devices are actually collectible - a Mustang owner proudly showed me a California-only gizmo on his car that he claimed was worth more than the whole rest of his restored car.

It's a challenge to make a car run right with these oddball devices, but that's part of the fun to keep it "original" and show off some history. (Of course, you could consider doing something like rending it inoperative, but I'm not a legal expert on such things. I was told personally by the head of the Virginia inspection program some years ago that original devices had to be there; it was OK if they didn't work, but it was illegal to replace them with a working versions of a newer model, only identical versions.)

Another reason not to live in californication.

So okeh, don't throw it away, toss it on eBay and see if anyone bites.
You have got to be kidding. "Sure, it runs poorly and gets bad mileage and has a non-factory dingus tossed on, but it's…um, no, wait, it's not original, either. But it's, y'know, it's a challenge!"
"Sure, it runs poorly and gets bad mileage and has a non-factory dingus tossed on, but it's…um…it shows off some history of a poorly-implemented law in a state I don't live in!"
Which part of "aftermarket retrofit law in California" are you having difficulty understanding? I thought my explanation was clear and detailed, but perhaps I left something out.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Dan, don't loose your sense of humor! Every state has it's own rules and every owner his own idea of what he wants - historical accuracy, show, power, whatever.

Minn. law does state in "325E.0951 MOTOR VEHICLE AIR POLLUTION CONTROL SYSTEMS Subd. 2.Prohibited acts. (a) A person may not knowingly tamper with, adjust, alter, change, or disconnect any air pollution control system on a motor vehicle or on a motor vehicle engine."

I'm not a lawyer, but the Carter device might well fall under the above law since it doesn't say factory but "any".

I remember when my dad and older brother brought home his first car on a trailer....a 1976 Mustang II.

It was in absolutely perfect condition, but had been originally sold in California and was loaded with various and assorted weird emmissions gizmos.

My dad downloaded it from the tailer and immediately pulled it into the garage and opened the hood. He put a large trash can next to the front fender and spent the next two hours disconnecting, removing and otherwise ripping out wires, hoses, chunky looking boxes, plates, etc, etc and unceremoniously chunking them in the big trash can!

I watched in awe at what I thought was the destruction of a perfectly good car, but after this "raping" was over, he fired it up and drove it around the block and then tossed my brother the keys.

The car ran fine, but I'll never forget the image of what I thought was my dad loosing his mind that day.

A few weeks later, my brother had a glass pack muffler put on it. It sounded just awful....something like a mosquito fogging machine that was on its last leg. We lived down on the Mexican border in south Texas and most of the kids we went to school with were hispanic and they all called it "La Mosca"....or The Mosquito.

So now, in addition to it being ugly and underpowered, it also sounded just terrible and you could hear it coming for miles. We only lived about a mile from school and I often opted to walk instead of arriving in that thing.

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1954 Ford, Tudor Mainline
1976 Plymouth Valiant, 4 door


www.automotive-ninja.com

haha Thanks to all of your replies. It's very much helped me understand what the device is! You guys are awesome.

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2015 Dodge Dart GT (Daily Driver)
2006 Dodge Charger Daytona, Top Banana #3874 of 4000 (lots of fun)
1970 Dodge Dart Custom 225 Slant Six, Auto, A/C (good car, engine rebuild)