As the Subject heading says, has anyone done this before or know what problems might occur if the exhaust runs alongside the drive shaft in the centre tunnel. I haven't settled on the width of the chassis centre section yet. The only thing I can think of is possible heat affecting the drive shaft? I'm not sure.
Any ideas

bigrich has done it.

The heat wont affect the propshaft, it will make you rather warm in summer though

i'm doing it. should be fired up with the exhaust by the end of the week


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[Edited on 22/5/10 by blakep82]

Running the exhaust down centre tunnel is not that much different from a Fury's one in the side pods.
You would be wise to double insulate as the tunnel will get very hot and the heat will affect the prop UJ's lubrication and the gearbox.
Air flow through the tunnel will help as would vents in the floor of the tunnel

You could always leave the area of the prop tunnel unskinned, just skin the floor in the cockpit section, that would allow plenty of air flow around both the prop and the exhaust. Don't know how that would affect the overall strength of the chassis, but wouldn't think it would affect it too badly, if at all. Cheers Ray

This is the sort of thing I'm having to do on my RX7 to get a V8 in it!

My Striker tunnel was hot enough with just the engine bay heat passing down it until I added large engine bay side vents. So any cold air flow down there would help a lot.




[Edited on 24-5-10 by bimbleuk]

I'd be concerned about heat near the prop shaft UJs drying out the lubrication. Apparently this was a common cause of failures on the front prop shaft of the Sierra 4x4 because the exhaust passes so close to the front prop. My mate had this UJ sieze on his 4x4 and the mess it made of the bellhousing, sump, front diff and front os driveshaft was quite a sight to behold (when the parts were gathered off the road ).

But this is many years of typical production car inspection/maintenance - i.e. none. I'm sure you could make it workable by taking appropriate mitigating steps. E.g. make sure the prop joints have grease nipples and make sure you have the access to grease them regularly, ensure plenty of airflow down the tunnel, wrap the exhaust, try to rig up a reflective heat shield between exhaust and prop (at least at the UJs), etc etc.

Liam