Published almost 5 years ago
I'm trying out a quick and non-invasive tip to increase the gas mileage of my Toyota Corolla.
The idea is to wrap the exhaust headers and pipes with insulation so that the engine can breathe easier and exhaust the spent fuel faster and easier, resulting in higher horsepower and thus better gas mileage. I'm really not sure if it will work, but I thought it would be fun to try.
Eddie says:
I don't know about with the exhaust, but I could see that if you were able to insulate the pipes under the hood and get cooler air in, that might give you a boost because cool air = more dense air = more 02 = more bang for your buck when the gas/air mixture explodes.
Insulating the exhaust might have a bad effect because that air is already hot. If there were some way put a heatsink or something on the exhaust to let that hot air cool down more it would flow better and make for better breathing and better mileage.
Albert says:
Hi Eddie, thanks for commenting! I haven't tried the insulation yet, but I'll try and track down where I got the idea from to share, as I can't remember the exact logic behind it.
Russell Coker says:
What is the theory behind this? How is having the exhaust gas remain hot until it leaves the end of the pipe supposed to increase efficiency?
If you want to make a change to your exhaust to increase efficiency then simply remove the muffler, it won't be street-legal but it will give more usable energy for a given quantity of fuel!