Does every one of these cars smell like Exhaust?

CarMichael Angelo

my rearend will smell so minty fresh,
15 Year Member
Nov 29, 1999
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Birmingham, al
I stink. I may as well as stood behind the exhaust tips, but I didn't. I was in my car. I have a full exhaust and fumes still waft in every time I stop. It was the same way w/ the anemic 4 cylinder before that, it had a full exhaust and I still got out smelling like carbon monoxide. WTF???
 
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I currntly own four Capris, don't have cats on any of them and none of mine stink.
If yours does, then it's time for a re-tune... or a tune up.... or some hatch gaskets... or all the above.
 
I currntly own four Capris, don't have cats on any of them and none of mine stink.
If yours does, then it's time for a re-tune... or a tune up.... or some hatch gaskets... or all the above.


Maybe it's like they say, after working around dead things awhile you get used to the smell.......Are you just used to the smell of your exhaust?:)

I don't have a hatch, I have a trunk. It has new gaskets, and besides the fumes are coming in through the open windows. It is running rich at idle, and I'm gonna deal w/ that, and hopefully, that'll lessen the impact of my "Car guy cologne" when I get out of my car.
 
IIRC a good set of aftermarket cats in a quality midpipe will not add much restriction unless this is on your boosted car, seems like its less than 5hp loss. They will quiet it down some but not much, not as much as a muffler.
 
So you guys are telling me that if I put an aftermarket pair of cats on they'll burn off the excess co2?

Do cats add alot of exhaust restriction?
Do they quiet the system like a muffler would?

There were literally thousands of cars built before catalytic converters were mandatory... all with carburetors.... and you may be suprised to know that none of them stunk like you are saying your car does... I know, I'm old and have lived through the time of cars with no cats.

A car with a proper tune, with carb set correctly and not burning oil will NOT have an overpoweringly nasty exhaust smell.... it's going to have an exhaust smell, but not one that will make your clothes stink if you've driven with the windows down.

A buddy of mine had an '85 Mustang 5.0 with the same problem you're explaining and if I'd follow him down the road, my eyes would actually tear up the smell of unburnt fuel was so bad. So we swapped cars and he followed me while I was in his car so he could experience how bad it was... then I followed him while he was in my car and there was no smell at all coming from mine. He leaned out the carb and the problem went away... and neither of our cars have cats.

Installing cats on your car isn't going to make the bad smell go away, it may actually make it worse becasue the cats give off a "rotten egg" smell... and combined with whatever your REAL problem is, it's going to make for one crappy smelling exhaust.

Plain and simple, it is not normal for a car to have a foul exhaust smell... you need to figure out if you're running too rich or if your car is need of a tune or tune up, or if you have an oil consumption problem with the rings or valve stem seals.
 
So you guys are telling me that if I put an aftermarket pair of cats on they'll burn off the excess co2?

No, we're telling you if you put a set of aftermarket cats on, it'll get rid of most of the stink. C02's got nothing to do with it, it's unburned HC that's the problem.

Do cats add alot of exhaust restriction?
Do they quiet the system like a muffler would?

I put a pair of tiny little Magnaflow spun-metallics in my offroad H-pipe about 3 years ago and I still kick myself for not doing it sooner. They didn't quiet the exhaust at all, and if they cost me power, I don't notice it. But it sure does stink less. And it passed Phoenix's dyno-based smog check just fine last year.