Exhaust tip cleaning

dparm1984

Member
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2007 MazdaSpeed 3 GT
Boy do our tips get black quickly. Cleaning the tip is something you can't get lax on or else there will be a lot of work involved.

I had to use Eagle One NevrDull (which is moderately abrasive) to get a few weeks worth of soot off the tip. Is this because the cars run kinda rich? I've never seen something blow this much soot out the exhaust.


(BTW I know very well how to detail, I used to run a pretty successful detailing business...this is merely meant as a comment that our tips look dirty fast)
 
Oh hell yeah... I wash my car 1-2 time a week and the tailpipe is always pitch black... Even with me washing it all the time, it seems to be getting stained or burnt... I think I'll have to get some metal polish to bring them back to new (spotless)...
 
I try and get the tip whenever I was the car as well. About once a month I will take some Turtle Wax polishing compound and buff out the chrome. I thought instaling the MS CAI would keep the tip cleaner but I think it actually made it worse. LOL, oh well, when the tip is clean is sure looks sexy.
 
w/in 3 days of my catback install, the tip was black lol, so i was like forget it, we just run rich, nothing u can do. just hides the exhaust so we look slow =P
 
Yeah the biggest thing is keeping up with it. Once a week and I'm betting that just a light cleaner will keep it looking good.

I find that window cleaner works well at cleaning water spots and light stains off it. I only break out the abrasive stuff when it's really burnt on. Unfortunately my orbital doesn't fit under there.
 
I used to use Honda Pro motorcycle polish on the tailpipe of my R6... I bet that'd work.
$6 a spray can.
Cleaned off just about anything, safe on paints and great for chrome and plastic.
 
I wonder if silicone spray would work on it? I usally clean my wheels with this stuff.
 
Better solution -- have Mazda re-flash the ECU to make the car's A/F ratios a bit more reasonable. ;-)
 
Better solution -- have Mazda re-flash the ECU to make the car's A/F ratios a bit more reasonable. ;-)
Doesn't matter. With my Evo dyno tuned I still had black soot on the tip of that. Turbo cars need to run richer.

Used the Neverdull. Still looks really good after a few days of driving.
 
Better solution -- have Mazda re-flash the ECU to make the car's A/F ratios a bit more reasonable. ;-)

Black soot is a result of the type of fuel injection we have. All direct injected gas motors will have sooty tail pipes. Ours is a little worse because we are Turbo'd and run sooooper rich at WOT. At cruise we and every other vehicle on the road are around 14.7:1 AFR. My wifes 07 5cyl Jetta has a sooty tail pipe. Diesles have black sooty tail pipes. All direct injection. And the gas motors release particulate matter (what ever the hell that is) and that is real sooty.
 
I saw how quickly it got filthy and never bothered to clean it. I decided to just let it get a nice, thick coat and eventually it would look like it is supposed to be black, which looks pretty good against the red car.
 
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