ok, yesterday i was driving behind a chevy with dual exhaust(dual pipes anyways) and i noticed more exaust coming out of one pipe than the other. i've noticed this on other vehicles too. is this poor installation... a restriction... normal... or what?

If it was a camaro the answer is easy. The aftermarket exhausts work with a single exhaust that splits. One side is straight through and the other side goes through a quiet muffler. You can tune the exhaust to your liking by adding restrictor plates on the straight-through side and forcing more or less exhaust through the muffler.

The other more probable answer is that one of the cylinders on one side of the engine had more blowby and made more visible smoke than the other side. Its pretty typical but has nothing to do with exhaust installation.

If it was a colder day, you might be seeing moisture condensation in the exhaust. This condensation is no longer visible when the exhaust is fully warmed up, therefore, if one side of the exhaust has a longer route to take, it will take longer to warm up and will produce visible condensation for a longer period of time.

On dual exhaust some have crossovers and if one of the mufflers has more crap in it or that side has more bends in it causing restrictions, one side well appear to have more exhaust than the other. Plus all the above..

If it was a colder day, you might be seeing moisture condensation in the exhaust. This condensation is no longer visible when the exhaust is fully warmed up, therefore, if one side of the exhaust has a longer route to take, it will take longer to warm up and will produce visible condensation for a longer period of time.


sums up about what I was going to say, on my truck the exhaust pipes come down from the headers, go into one big pipe that follows the passenger side frame rail, then split back out before the rear axle so the driver side pipe has say about, 4-5 more feet of pipe to it, but they both blow out about the same air pressure.

ic, thanks all!

Even if one side goes a further distance, the same amount of exhaust should be comming out of each side.

Think about it... The only way there would be more pressure on one side or the other is if one pipe is a different diameter. Or, if something was wrong with the engine, but that's another topic.

Even if one side goes a further distance, the same amount of exhaust should be comming out of each side.

Think about it... The only way there would be more pressure on one side or the other is if one pipe is a different diameter. Or, if something was wrong with the engine, but that's another topic.

Well, not really. But it's almost achedemic.

To make the point lets exagerate. Assume both pipes the same diameter and material, but one was 10 foot longer that the other. The longer pipe would cause those cylinders to have less volumeteric efficiency due to poor scavaging. So the pressure would be less on the longer pipe.

I guess that, like human, fluid likes to take the easy way out! ;3D Therefore if there's a difference in restriction between the 2 pipes, the fluid will like to go thru the 1 with less restriction.