Just like the title says. Please see the pix below. First pic shows the intermediate pipe, which looks like crap. The second pic shows the muffler and a bit of the rear part of the SAME intermediate pipe. Note how clean they look.

Both of them looked in great condition, same as the muffler does NOW, at the begining of summer, but after 1 season of driving the intermediate pipe looks like crap. Whats goin on?

I dont drive in the rain, or even slick ground. I did once, but i dont think it should have mattered. The only thing i can think of, is i run retarded timing, but shouldnt my y-pipe be more affected by that??? The car is parked on a dry garage floor indoors after every trip, never really sees any exposure to grass or anything like that.

I just wasnt happy to see it look that bad, looks like im gonna have leaks and stuff soon.

I realize, a large chunk of the pipe is dirt, i havent scrubbed it off yet, but there is alot of rust on it too. How do i prevent it?

 

doesnt mean that ur car is running bad.... its just ur conditions, enviornment and just running the car.

gas, carbon, oil, antifreeze, trans fluid, power steering fluid, brake fluid.... there is not one thing on the car that causes rust expecially from the engine. u gotta remember your climate, every day depending on the weather cars build dew on them, when metal gets warm and cools it condenses water, when u start the car sometimes water will come dripping out... thats the metal heating when it was cold and condenses water etc. there are many variables ur not thinking of, but if your cars not in an envoirmentally controled air tight bubble.... its going to rust. exhaust is usually aluminized steel which is just a coating, it will rust. even if u paint it, it will prob rust from the inside out from condesing water.

only ways to prevent it.... paint it and keep checking on it, watch where u drive and the conditions it encounters, put it in a car bubble lol, or get stainless exhaust. looks like u could use an upgrade thats prob 2.5/2.25" pipe and i can see its compression bent.... not the best for performance

 

That sounds about right. But i think you misunderstood me. I know its going to rust, but it shouldnt rust like THAT the way i take care of it, especially over a SINGLE season. Also the rust in the exhaust system is concetrated on THAT one spot.

My question is, why is that part of the exhaust getting the worst rust? Why isnt the same happening to my y-pipe or the pipes at the back?

As for performance, its a 2.5" intermediate. I like noise, but not all the time. So a three inch y-pipe and this baby, is the perfect comprimise for best of both worlds and performance.

 

I wouldnt worry about it. That is very light surface rust. My best bet would be that road debris like sand gets sucked up in the airstream and wears the aluminized coating off. Raw metal will rust overnight from the moisture in the air.

Here is my exhaust. It has survived 18 years so far, and looks rusty but it still real solid when you hit it with a hammer.

 

Yea youre probably right. Ill just clean, paint it, and hope it lasts a bit longer.

 

What kind of driving do you do? Many short trips? Short trips don't heat up the engine enough to warm up the exhaust to get rid of all the condensation. It'll settle in low points as well.

From those pictures it doesn't look bad, just dirty and scratched up. That's life for a car that doesn't get trailered back and forth
You could always scrape it clean and paint it with VHT. After it's dry take the car for a 1 hr drive. It'll stink like your car caught on fire, but just let it bake on.

 

my exhaust did that when my car was running massively lean and the intermediate pipe was glowing it got white like that.

 

I painted mine about a year ago, you just have to touch it up every now and then.. I just didnt like the look of a shiny muffler hanging under a all black car.

 

I think this is my problem..... (sort of).

Sonix: Whenever the car starts, it will not shut off before its completely warm. I try to avoid short trips as much as possible, and if i do take short trips, its after a long trip, so the car is already warm. You may remember from other threads, that i havent quite got my timing dialed in just yet. With my cam, if i want it to idle, i have to advance it like crazy, and it pings at WOT under that condition. However, if i want it to run well at WOT, i dialed it to about 34* total (without vacuum advance) at 3000rpm. This was running fairly retarded. The timing mark said 8* but it sounded like it was REALLY retarded.

Now back to what Jproz said. I was running an 80s cc qjet and stock manifold before, and it was DEFINATELY running lean. No matter where i timed it, it would always knock, and just crap out, like it had no fuel.

After the Holley 750 DP (which also isnt jetted right yet), its actually running rich, BUT, because of the retarded timing, im confident i have a heating issue.

i can think of two occasions where this could have happened. (same day actually). We decided to go to my freind's house after classes, during peak rush hour. I got stuck in bumper to bumper traffic, and moved maybe 200 m in about 20 minutes. Needless to say the car was really heating up. It reached about 220, and if it reached 225, i would have pulled over and shut it off. To make things worse, i have header wrap, so it probably wasnt nice to the rest of the pipes. Any way, we got moving in 20 mins, and i started cruising, to let things cool off. At a signal down the road, i knew my fan just stopped. SO i pulled over, and the fusible link has melted. (the fuse itself was ok, but the plastic melted and removed contact). So i bypassed it, and went on my way.

Later that night we decided it was time for chineese, so we took the bird. 10 mins of highway driving + 5 mins of city. When we parked at the place, and got out, you could feel a WARM puff of air eminating from below. Ive never felt that before, not even in the last summer when i was driving in traffic everyday.

I think the retarded timing and header wraps might be the culprit. But again, why just the intermediate and not the y-pipe??? The y-pipe was installed at the beginning of the summer, so it looks quite a bit better, but it looks COMPLETELY new still, and the intermediate looked pretty similar... Thats the only reason im confused.

Ill be spraying it VHT, i was very impressed with that paint, and i would bake it with a propane torch before i went for a cruise. I would highly recommend that stuff.

 

Yea, retarded timing and running lean both would make it run really hot - but you're right, the y-pipe and headers should show similar signs.

On the topic of cooling, are you using a stock V6 electric cooling system? Not sure if I mentioned already, but a Taurus fan setup is light years ahead of the V6 GM setup, and about $30 at pick a part. I'm using that, along with a 185* fan switch from a corvette website.
Heck, i'm only running the low speed, I didn't even wire up the high speed yet. I ran it in rush hour in bumper to bumper traffic with no hiccups.

 

My car has always been a v8, its a formula. So whatever the cooling system that was in place is still there.

I know what you mean about the taurus fan. My freinds 11.5:1 olds rocket engine gets pretty hot, and i gave him a taurus fan i found laying around a shop. He wires it up, and the car never over heats now.

I might go find one for myself.

 

eh u could do that or just get a 177 on 166 off hypertec fan switch, and a 160 stat and u'll be good, i did that and my car wont get over 175 in the summer and now in the winter im running 140-150 haha no probs ever over heating.

if i was you i would do the ypipe again, that thing is pretty restrictive to where its welded to the catback, thats alot of built up weld, i have done many exhuasts and for increased flow/looks/drivability i would def invest in a 20$ 3" to 2.5" converter exhuast pipe to smoothen the transisiton and pay a midas welder 30$ to weld it up for u nicely.

 

My lean condition was caused by that rubber line between the fuel pump and the sock had a small slit in it. Fuel pressure was later found to be at about 5psi.

Like your car my manifolds and Y-pipe did not glow now did my cat. However from about 4 inches behind the cat to just before the muffler it would seriously light up a bright orange. It was very noticeable running the car at about 1700rpm in nuetral.

This may not be your problem but my exhaust was trashed just like yours.

This was on this trans am with the TBI motor