Muffler question

[deathegg]

Ok, this may qualify for the dumbest question of the month, (or the year!) but here goes:

Do mufflers work backwards? That is, if you were to reverse the exhaust flow through a typical muffler, would it still muffle the sound or would it sound different in some way? OR would it get louder, as though it lived on the Bizarro World?

[sasquatch]

on a "glass pack" type muffler it dosnt matter but other ones like a "chamber" muffler is will matter what way hey go.

[jglutz]

For a conventional muffler...that's a pretty good question.

The most likely scenario is that the tail pipe noise will increase...normaly the gas exhaust gases expand in the muffler.

The risk is that the increase in pressure will produce additional load on the engine and possibly burn the exhaust valves.

[FB71]

conventional chambered mufflers are typically omni flow.
these are turbo mufflers, stock replacements, etc.

pressure-wave dampeners are omni flow.
these are glasspacks.

sound-shaped mufflers are typically directional flow.
these are Flowmasters, Edelbrocks, Dynomax, etc.

installing sound-shaped mufflers backwards will result in a slight increase in backpressure at high engine RPMs, coupled with a lack of sound dampening at all RPMs.