Your car'sexhaust system carries away the gases created when the fuel and air areburned in the combustion chamber. These gases are harmful to humans andour environment. Make sure there are no holes in the exhaust system orin the passenger compartment where exhaust fumes could enter. Below isa listing of the parts of the exhaust system and their functions.
Exhaust manifold: The exhaust manifold attaches to the cylinder headand takes each cylinder's exhaust and combines it into one pipe. Themanifold can be made of steel, aluminum, stainless steel, or morecommonly cast iron.
Oxygen sensor: All modern fuel injected cars utilize an oxygen sensorto measure how much oxygen is present in the exhaust. From this thecomputer can add or subtract fuel to obtain the correct mixture formaximum fuel economy. The oxygen sensor is mounted in the exhaustmanifold or close to it in the exhaust pipe.
Catalytic converter: This part converts harmful carbon monoxide andhydrocarbons to water vapor and carbon dioxide. Some converters alsoreduce harmful nitrogen oxides. The converter is mounted between theexhaust manifold and the silencer box (muffler).
Silencer Box (Muffler): The silencer box serves to quiet the exhaustdown to acceptable levels. Remember that the combustion process is aseries of explosions that create a lot of noise. Most silencer boxesuse baffles to bounce the exhaust around dissipating the energy andquieting the noise. Some also use fiberglass packing which absorbs thesound energy as the gases flow through.
Exhaust pipe: Between all of the above mention parts is the exhaustpipe which carries the gas through it's journey out your tail pipe.Exhaust tubing is usually made of steel or aluminized steel tubing. |