Pointing exhaust at your tires?

Enough air and turbulance that I doubt it is an issue. I worry more about noise in the car. No biggie around town but after a couple hours it wears on ya.....you know as well as I do from out freshman roadster projects!?

 

Don't want to weaken your speed rated tires. I've seen countless buddies point they're exhaust to the ground. Stir up a dust cloud like "Pig Pen" Dust Cloud Boy! My Dodge Boy will melt your Radiator!

 

I've had zero problems with mine...I fell in love with the Orr roadster and wanted to copy that look for my Av8.

 

I point them away from the tires.
Specially on a racecar.

Cause if you blow up your engine and it spits oil all over a rear tire, it can make you crash...

 

Just my opinion, but i wouldn't.---TV

 

heat, soot, hydrocarbons/unburnt-fuel + rubber just don't seem like a good mix.
TP

 

Turns your wheels & tires gray if you drive on the highway ...

 

Seems like a bad idea from a lot of angles. Obviously the safety angle pointed out by metalshapes, a real concern cause hot rods & hot rodders do blow engines.

Then you have the whole carbon monoxide thing, and letting the tires mix exhaust into the wheelwells seems like a roll of the dice.

Since the tires roll and move overheating isn't a real concern, but tires do age with heat, so why expose them to more heat than required? I tucked a pair of exhaust tips on an off topic car so they were out of sight, and were leaving the tiniest bit of soot on the lower, inner edge of the quarter panel. Bout 3 months of around-town cruising and the heat had removed the seam sealer from the lower edges of the quarters! Point being, exhaust blows hot!

 

I did it on my old non-hamb related ford. Never really had a problem with my tires, I was running baiscly open 3" exhaust on a built engine so noise was always a problem, but the biggest thing was in stop and go traffic the fumes would get to ya

 

I've wondered the same thing about fumes and effect on tires.... The exhaust on 'Zombie Hot Rod's' Coupe really caught my eye:



Maybe he can chime in and let us know his experience....



Malcolm

 

I was going to run the tailpipes over the rear axle and out the back, but once the panhard bar was in it added to the already tight fit so I ran em out under the rear axle.

Gotten to where I like it.

Here's a couple pics with standard exhaust tips - 2 1/2".




A couple with megaphones.




No drone, runs quiet at part throttle, noisy at full throttle due to 2 chamber FlowMasters.
Not wild about the sound, but it's about all that fits.

Just for the heck of it, no exhaust at all.


I've had good luck with side pointing exhaust.
A 90* turn and extend the tip out past the tire just a smidge.
The body of car or pickup is usually bowed out in the middle so people won't trip over the exhaust tip.

There's an exhaust tip called "Donkey ****s" in SoCal.
You can find them at Kragen etc., but the ones with the best chrome are usually found at muffler shops.
They look nice with their about 30* bend at the outlet end and the flared tip adds to the good looks.
I like to install these on side pipes with the tip turned down at a 45* angle which points the exhaust down and out to the side.
If you don't use much throttle in a dusty area you won't stir up much dust.

Either way, especially with the Donkey ****s the exhaust doesn't hit the tire when stopped or at idle.
When moving the heated exhaust mixes with cool air and what little does hit tire and wheel it doesn't seem to heat it up.
Only thing that does happen is the rear wheel gets dirty faster.

The under the axle pipes shown above are just beyond the axle and I've never smelled exhaust smoke in the car when running or sitting for long periods at idle.

 

I was told at one time that they were pointed at the ground at the rear tire to blow the dust off of the pavement for better traction. It looks like a dust storm on a dirt road. Keith

 

So far so good here....but I've had it on the road less than a year and it hasn't yet been driven over an hour and a half straight.

 

If you actually drive it, it won't take long for you to tire of constantly cleaning the wheels and tires. The diggers did it for a reason. I can see no reason to do it on a street driven car. I've put a lot of tail pipes on cars for guys that grew tired of the h***le.

The guys with the turn downs should hear all the cussing from the dust mop crowd.

 

Ford ran the exhaust out in front of the p***anger rear wheel on the '97 F150. They also warrantied lots of right rear wheels for discoloration.

 

You just read my mind, up here in Canada the wheel would get covered with frost in the winter due to the condensation from the exhaust blowing on it. Looked like a big white wheel disk

 

Funny, I thought of those exact trucks when I saw this thread...
Still see them around once in a while with that funky looking exhaust.

 

I would be paranoid about the heat more than the fumes. I am like C9, my exhaust guy (onlychevrolet) ended up going under the rear axle because of the panhard bar and like it. - Good sound and no fumes

 

i agree, an exhaust aiming directly at your tires sounds bad if you look at all the bad that can happen, sometimes you just have to sacrifice your life to look cool. ; ) since i have not popped a motor in the 20 years ive been on the road i say f*ck it.

here's my death machine-i couldnt see some of you guy's out the back exhaust route on this truck at all. just wouldnt be right. my next one is gettin' some 5" stacks...

 

ive never heard of any negatives, but still never wanted to try it on my own

 

I wouldn't do it for a race car, what if you blow a head gasket (I have) when making a p***, and coolant sprays out the exhaust pipe, that side tire will get wet and the car will be a total handful.

For a street car I wouldn't care. I don't like tailpipes that exit on the sides, only because it's f'n loud and that gets old after about an hour.

I've typically run them under the car, and then angle the tipes at a 45 degree angle, pointing the center of the rearend.

 

If you are really concerned about pointing exhaust towards the rear tires on a hot rod...then you should probably have fenders, a hood, radial tires, disc brakes, etc.,since they all can affect the car just as much, or more, than exhaust placement near the rear tires.

Just playing devil's advocate here...

 

what about an exhaust system dumped under car?

 

My pipes stop just inside the front of the rear tires, my clothes definatly smell like exhaust when I drive it and the sound is loud. I also notice the suet on the rear axle housing when I wash it too. I experemented with turndowns one cold day to see where the condensation out of the pipes would go, I couldn't come up with nothing that either look like **** from the back or not spray it somewhere else.
The bottom line is my car's a damn hot rod and if it stinks a little or makes you a little deaf so be it.

 

Over 10,000 miles on mine. A little soot on the Blitz Black paint after a long run. But I also have to deal with road rash kicked up by the fender less tires. It is a hot rod. And as such it requires an occasional dose of TLC that your average grocery getter would never understand.

 

Having the exhaust exit in front of the rear tires allows them to ride on a "cushion of air", for less rolling friction...or something.

No, seriously, I don't like it, never did. I am amazed how many drag cars do it, especially drag cars, as MS mentioned.

Just dumping exhaust under the car makes a big mess under there, and the fumes when stopped can kill ya. Don't like that either.

Back in the day I had a friend that had exhaust exiting in front of the rear tires, 'Cuda-style...his rear tires would turn brown all the time...the leaded gas perhaps?

I've lost a head gasket on a digger, the zoomies sprayed the water over the top of the car, thank goodness.

I'll keep my exhaust pointing where it won't cause bigger problems for me, street or strip.

 

Ever put your hand in front of an exhuast pipe at this distance? The tires get hotter from sitting out in the sun then than do from the exhaust.

I've never had a problem and I've put some serious miles on my cars.

 

I wouldnt worry too much about the heat from the exhaust but now that metalshapes has make me think of oil coming through the pipes on to the tire and causing a loss of traction , Id do something a little different.

 

The comments about discoloration are correct, I had side exhaust on a 69 chevy pickup with Ansen sprints and the rear wheels got seriously pitted from the exhaust just blowing past the wheel, not directly at it.

I once replaced the exhaust on a gas powered 33,000 GVW truck and left the turnout off the muffler because it wasn't in stock. The exhaust blowing straight back at the rear axle melted the hard plastic air brake lines. The lines were a good 4 feet from the muffler exit, but in a hard pull, the exhaust was hot enough to do fatal damage to the plumbing. And that with only a 400 CI 200 HP truck engine, and 8 feet of pipe between the manifold and the 60 lb muffler. That exhaust gets hot!