I have an electric cutout and my friend was trying to tell me not to leave it open so much because the lack of back pressure is bad for the motor. Is this true?

 

It depends on where the dumps are, if they are before the cat, then yes, over time it can harm your engine because air gets sucked into the exhaust.

 

And the problem with that is that it can lead to a burned valve. Though a cutout shouldn't pose much of a risk for that. That's something you mainly only have to worry about if you were running open headers, because of the short length.

 

no, it won't hurt the engine.. at all.. but you might lose a little bit of low end throttle response (due to overscavenging of the exhaust, and not from "too little back pressure") and maybe go deaf.

 

is this far enough back? this is mine its just about under the heat shield where the cat was

 

Talk about mountains out of mole hills.

You'll hurt your valves if you run open shorties or manifolds.

Im not a huge believer in cut outs, but they wont hurt anything. They may not agree with your engine's torque curve as a shorter or longer exhaust is better suited for high and low RPM ranges. Backpressure is bad. Period.

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/exha...-you-ever.html

 

lol I've yet to see open exhaust burn a valve. Going lean or the timing way off(glowing headers anyone?) will cause all sorts of problems though. The worst that's going to happen is less torque down low and you'll get noticed/harassed by the police, possibly a ticket depending on your local laws. I used to have a old 280ZX that the pipe was cut about 18" from the manifold with a turn down pointing out the side. It was very loud and would shoot a good 3' flame out the pipe when shifting at 6500rpm. I ran it like that for probably two years until I sold it. Never had a problem except for unwanted attention from the cops.

 

Alright good to know. I was going to be upset if I had that all installed and its harmful for my engine.