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In December 1995, the Province of British Columbia announced the introduction of more stringent automobile emissions standards for vehicles sold in the province commencing with the 1998 model year. The emissions standards are based on the model utilized by the State of California as outlined in Title 13 of the California Code of Regulations. In addition, the Federal Government of Canada has announced that the British Columbia standards may be adopted on a national basis. This announcement, coupled with other initiatives outlined by the Province of British Columbia in its Clean Air Strategy has provided the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) with the opportunity to develop an advanced training program on automobile emissions to ensure a knowledge base needed to meet the demands of implementation of enhanced inspection and maintenance (I/M) programs in the North America. This paper will discuss the outline of the proposed course.

The Province of BC requires all light duty vehicles in the lower mainland to pass or conditionally pass an emissions inspection as a condition of license and insurance renewal. Vehicles converted to natural gas and propane fail emissions tests at higher rates than comparable vehicles run on gasoline. Work is described to investigate the emissions performance of vehicles fitted with after-market conversions. FTP 75, Hot 505 and BC AirCare test cycles (total 74) were performed on a variety of vehicles (total 20) which were split between dual-fuel and mono-fuel using propane or natural gas along with gasoline. All but three vehicles were supplied by the manufacturer to run on gasoline with closed-loop air/fuel ratio feedback. The after market conversions consisted of both open-loop and closed-loop feedback systems for the gaseous fuel systems.