Anyone else ever had this happen? I towed a load (not a huge load) today for the first time with my new exhaust. It was a 3k lb. travel trailer. I was doing about 65mph in third gear, around 2500 RPM. I only pulled it 50 miles. When I got home, I noticed all of the pipes (especially before the muffler) had turned copperish-pink from the heat, and the polished tips have a yellow tint to them.

This was a bolt on Mahnaflow SIDO kit (15749) and I'm not too happy about this...

 

It's normal. Your egt's go up when towing or under alot of load. I made a couple of 0-60 runs this morning and when I got home my exhaust was poping like crazy. As far as the discoloring, maybe someone with the same exhaust can provide more input. I road M/C's for years, and learned quickly that heat is not a friend to chrome or stainless.

 

Who cares what the pipes look like in front of the muffler? As long as they aren't rusted, who cares? As far as the tips, just get a good polish and clean the tips, they will look like new when your done.

 

My buddy had the same thign happen to his 04 Hemi. It was a full magnaflow cat-back and all his piping when a copper gold color. Its just something that happens.

 

I understand that EGTs will go up when towing. I really am not concerned by the discoloring of the pipes themselves, just the tips. My father has a 7.3 powerstroke with a stainless turbo-back exhaust and when he tows, his EGTs will sometimes be upwards of 1100 degrees (pre-turbo). His pipes (much less his tip) have never discolored. Will a gas engine have higher EGTS than a diesel?

So a good aluminum polish should shine up my tips again? I'll get to work on that.

BTW I meant to post this in the exhaust forum...

 

If you do some searching you might be able to find some stuff I used a number of years ago, to remove some of the bluing from the pipes on my Harley. Visit a local Harley dealer or spend some time on google, you should be able to find this stuff. Sorry, I can't for the life of me remember the name, but there is something out there.

If it were me, I'd just ignore it all together. A little color wont hurt....

 

Your piping is 2.5", and your fathers is probably 4", big difference in heat dissipation or however you spell it.

 

You want to get a good stainless polish. Tips will look like new, at least mine do every time I polish them. I have the same system as you.

 

So Mother's Mag and Aluminum polish won't do the trick? I use it to polish nickel-plated and polished aluminum stuff on my dirt bikes with good results. What kind of stainless polish should I get, and where can I get it?

Apparently the surface is just discolored, not the entire piece? This system has only been on a couple of weeks and isn't tarnished, just tinted looking. Is this still something that can be remedied?

 

AJAX works wonders on nasty diesel tips, I'm sure it'd work on yours.

 

Any metal that is heated to near 500 plus degrees plus or minus will begin to react with the air around it and begin to change color as an indication of reaction.
These colors are used to judge various metal tempering procedures as an indication of temp in the absence of measuring it with a pyrometer.
Chrome that turns blue is usually the copper coating underneth reacting out thu the surface chrome coating and is not cleaned by polishing in that case.
You may be able to re-polish the SS but it will usually re-ocurr again under the same conditions.

 

I worked on the tips today and was able to get them polished back up like new. I even was able to polish some of the pink-looking areas back to new looking.

Once I had sections of the tips polished, it made the un-polished parts even worse. They looked like a dull yellow color in comparison to the bright and clear look of the polished part. Is it a bad sign that the exhaust gets hot enough to discolor this far back? Will I likely have to polish the tips back after every time I tow with the truck?