Do-It-Yourself High Performance Car Mods

Exhaust System

The engine will push spent gas out the exhaust system, and the less work it takes to push the exhaust out, the less power is wasted. There are two types of devices the exhaust might exit the engine into: an exhaust manifold or a header. An exhaust manifold is usually made of cast iron, while headers are made from steel tubing and are often designed to flow better than a manifold. Either one contains a set of passages to direct the air into an exhaust downpipe. The air then passes through one or more catalytic converters (or cats for short) to remove some of the more harmful pollutants, and then goes into the exhaust pipe, where the exhaust is quieted by one or more mufflers, and possibly a resonator (basically a smaller and less ...