What You Need to Know About an Exhaust System

Fri, Feb 5, 2010

As a car owner, it's extremely important to understand some of the mechanics of a car. It's very easy to disregard these details, but it can sure help you when you need to repair your car and you know what you're talking about. This guide will help you understand the details of what make up an exhaust system for cars and trucks.

When it comes to keeping your car safe, keeping your exhaust system sealed up is extremely important. To help maintain a safe exhaust system, I always recommend searching for holes in the exhaust. If there are holes, this means that dangerous fumes are entering your car, which you and your family are breathing in. If you do notice any holes, this problem should be handled immediately.

An exhaust system is made up of five different parts which all have different duties. In this article I'll cover these five parts; the exhaust manifold, the exhaust pipe, an oxygen sensor, a catalytic converter and the muffler.

First let's start with the exhaust manifold. This part is the part that releases the gas through one pipe, which is attached to the cylinder head. This is also known to be the place where emissions take place. The manifold is usually made from cast iron.

The oxygen sensor is responsible for dealing with oxygen levels. Through a computer system, the sensor evaluates the air/fuel ratio, specifically looking for the oxygen levels in this ratio. Once this system evaluates the oxygen levels, it can now determine how to keep the fuel economy levels as efficient as possible. You'll find the sensor either by the pipe or in the exhaust manifold.

Then there's the catalytic converter which is responsible for converting carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons. It takes these chemicals and converts them to carbon dioxide and water. This process takes place between the muffler and the manifold. Usually a catalytic converter is made with a honey comb filtration system.

Most people have heard of a muffler before, but that doesn't mean most know what it does! It's actually there for noise pollution. It takes the noise from the exhaust and keeps it quite by dissipating the energy from the noise.

The last part of the exhaust system is the exhaust pipe. It's often made from steel products, like stainless steel or even aluminum steel tubing. The exhaust pipe runs from the tail pipe through all the parts mentioned above.

This writer enjoys cars and is an expert when it comes to diesel exhaust systems. Learn more at his site at dieselexhaustsystems.org. His favorite enhancementon a car is a new high performance exhausts which is discussed on his blog as well.

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