The real reason behind angling mufflers is that it does help slightly with performance. My exhaust on my Subaru is angled. With the muffler angled, it provides the straightest line possible for exhaust flow to travel out of my car from the turbo. The more bends you have (regardless of whether u have mandrel bent pipes or not) the more u slow down the exhaust flow, which is restricting the exhaust more.

 

Are we talking about mufflers alone or cat-back's? If it's just a muffler welded on sideways, that's busted...but if it's a cat-back, then engineers must have made it angled for a reason. My old tanabe rm was a canister style but it never angled to the side, it just went straight out.

 

the same reason why cars put z3 fender grills on their car when it serves no purpose but to cool .........nothing.

 

Newsflash...your n/a 4-banger doesn't benefit SHIT from your cat-back exhaust...so there is no angle in the fucking world that will improve it's performance.

I love my exhaust as well...(me jumping on my fellow MKIVs bandwagon).

 

Wut if...Its backwards!...? no? ok.

 

Route it back through the intake for all I care...

 

when done on factory exhaust and the come out on the side behind the wheel it is so the fumes are pulled away from the vehicle.and do not tumble in to pickup in looking at a truck. Also on my TDI the pipes bend down towards the ground and this is so the heavy particulate soot will not tumble in the turbulent air behind the car and get the back of the car filthy

 

i think most of the time, its just a muffler thats been forced to fit on there.....i saw a muffler on a focus the other day, it was aimed almost directly at the ground just to make it fit...i just thought, u know, if you had to do all that to make it fit, you really didnt need it. cuz its not going to help you performance wise, and it looks like complete ass.....

 

hey person with the supra, wtf? you take your exhuast air from ur mani and use that to spool up your twin turbos and that goes into your intake. i think mufflers are ridiculous and the excess air leaving your exhaust should be used properly to warm up coffee in the morning. forced induction rocks but honestly this thread was started because of a bunch of tacky cars running around. Please if you know someone that does shitty work such as "angling a muffler towards the ground or off centered or that looks like ass" let me know cuz i need to get my repuation points up.

 

Thats what I've always thought was the reasoning behind it. A whole bunch of 90 degree bends may look clean with the exhuast coming straightout, but its still a performance hinderance.