Will an Off road H pipe (no cats) create more heat in the mufflers or just the opposite?

 

I would think it would lower the final temp of the exhaust a bunch. I think cats run around 1200 -1400 degs when up to full temps.
Scott

 

Cats store heat, so with them removed, the heat should pass on through pretty reasonably. The mufflers may get a little warmer, but should't be anything to worry about. We never ran cats on the older Fox stangs and nobody ever considered anything about the mufflers getting hot. The mufflers were in the center of Fox Bodies too.

 

Reason I ask is last summer I ran on a road course and the engine temps were a little hotter than normal, 3/4 on the gauge vs normal(1/2). The chrome exhaust tips actually got a slight gold tint to them from getting so hot. This summer I should be running the O/R.H pipe and dont want to do any more damage to them.

 

The exhaust temp is higher WITH cats. The cat's don't "store" heat. They produce it by oxidizing (aka: burning) residual fuel (things like unburned HCs OR things like carbon monoxide) by kicking off the process with a catalytic reaction (that's why they are called "catalytic converters").

They get HOT. There has been more than one grain field burned to the ground because someone drove out in a car to visit the farmer and the cats lit off the dry stubble.

So, if you do not have cats, the exhaust stream will be cooling down from the instant it leaves the combustion chambers to when it exits the exhaust. With cats, it starts cooling down, then it hits the cat and gets heated up again, then it cools down from the cats back to the tips. But it is generally hotter coming out of the cats than out of the head AND it has a shorter time to cool down, so it will be hotter at the exhaust tip with cats.

 

Makes sense. Thanks!

 

+1 for everything above. The exhaust heat builds where the carbon does. The mufflers will raise maybe a few degrees, but not enough to make a difference.