Other than making it sound louder?
In: Technology
Dual exhaust doesn’t necessarily make a car or truck louder. You often see it most on V8 or larger engines where each bank or cylinders has its exhaust manifold or headers on one side of the engine.
Many trucks will have the manifolds from both sides of the engine combine and have a single exit. Performance cars will often have dual exhaust as the two separate exhaust pipes with an H pipe or X pipe up front allows for better exhaust flow, boosting power output.
On modern cars, they’re pretty much just for looks unless it’s on a V8. There are tons of 4 cylinder cars with dual exhaust tips.
Two things you must understand in order to explain.
**First, the number of “exhausts” has nothing to do with the volume (or noise) a car makes**. You can have nearly silent “dual exhausts” and you can have deafening loud single exhausts.
**Second, you need to understand that an engine is an air pump. Air comes IN the engine through the intake, and exists the car through the exhaust.** Just like you might breathe IN through you nose, and OUT through your mouth.
**The purpose of Dual Exhausts is to allow larger engines to “breathe out” better.** The more air and engine can take in, and remove, the more power it makes. So, all things equal, an engine with a single exhaust may make less power than an engine with dual exhausts, simply because there is more ability to “breathe out”
There are a TON of nuances in all of this, but that’s basically the point. The larger the engine, the more air it needs to push out of the exhaust. Depending on the design of the car, size of the motor, or performance required, a car may need dual exhausts just to get all the air out.
Again, this air coming out is controlled by mufflers and other silencers, and has nothing to do with making it louder. Older big V8 Mercedes have dual exhausts and are nearly silent. Meanwhile, small motorcycle engines can have single exhaust and destroy you’re hearing.
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