shattergard

Hello Everyone

I am somewhat of a newbie, so please excuse my silly question.
When I first start up my 993.. my fabspeeds drip water from the tailpipes.
FYI: I drive the car about once or twice a week and its always garaged.

Thanks for everyone's help

Jordan

PS. Would parking the car on a incline help?

epj993

That's not usual - just some accumulated moisture. No worries.

TRINITONY

Same here..btw...how you like the 996?

shattergard

TRINITONY- I love my 996.. the Targa is really coooool.

Thanks much

chris walrod

If this water was from the 996, I would have been worried for ya, but since its from the 993, no worries -- just condensation..

Marv

Oh, oh! How close did you park it to your 996?

TCallas

Every engine that is started cold and is warming up has some water or condensation come from the exhaust. Anytime you heat up a metal it will sweat water not to mention the catalytic converters byproduct of cleaning the exhaust is water too. This brings about one of the reasons you should not drive your car for short distances. When you drive your car until the oil is at operating temperature, it somewhat boils some of that water out of the oil, another good reason to change your oil more frequently. I hope this makes sense.

KOAN

Metal sweating water?? I suggest that when you burn gasoline or any other hydrocarbon fuel, the byproducts are largely CO2 and H20. If the exhaust is cold, the H2O vapor will condense on the cold surface until the metal is hot enough to evaporate the condensed H20, and will subsequently not condense more of the the H20 vapor. If you have water in your oil, you have a problem, and is probably not the cause of start up moisture dripping from the exhaust.

TCallas

I beg to differ Mr. Price. Try heating up a piece of metal with a torch sometime and see what happens in the real world and not in YOUR somewhat lab type atmosphere. I have seen many cars, for when the customer does not drive the car frequently and also has only short distance trips, we remove the engine drain plug during an oil change and we get 2-4 ounces of water first then the engine oil. This is a common problem and not unusual at all in an air cooled motor under certain circumstances.

KOAN

Well, I stand corrected about the water being commonly found in the oil of an air cooled car (perhaps in all cars). Perhaps it is from condensation from moisture in the air contained in the system. I am still somewhat puzzled by the idea that water somehow materializes from metal as it is being heated. In the scenerio that you describe, I believe it still is probably the H20 from combustion of the torch gas. We agree on the wisdom of driving until the oil and exhaust heat up enough to evaporate any residual water to get it out of both systems.

KOAN

TCallas,
I think the problem is that I took you too literally. When I think of sweat, I think of the water actually coming out of the metal. I think you were describing the appearance of water on the metal as sweat. We are probably agreeing, but not understanding the words the same way. My problem is that I work with people and skin rather than with metal, so my reference was pretty specific.

chris walrod

You should see the moisture from Magnesium or Aluminum when heated. Its pretty wild what moisture those materials will hold!!
When we would warm-up the race cars, water would literally drip off the mag castings of the gearbox.

Will

As a chemist, perhaps I can contribute a few thoughts. First, there is a lot of water vapor in exhaust. Gasoline is a complex mixture of hydrocarbons, but for our purposes, it isn't too far off to think of it as heptane (C7H16). Burning heptane involves the oxygen from air and results in carbon dioxide and water. Burning 1 kg of heptane consumes about 3.5 kg of oxygen and gives about 1.4 kg of water (the rest of the mass produced is largely carbon dioxide). When you fire up your cold engine, the exhaust, containing lots of water vapor, leaves the engine and encounters the various parts of the exhaust system (manifold, pipes, cat, muffler, exhaust tip), all of which are much colder than the exhaust vapor. This cools the exhaust vapor and causes the water to condense, ultimately leading to some dribbling from your tailpipe. As the exhaust system warms up, it doesn't cool the exhaust enough to condense water any longer and everything is happy. There's still lots of water coming out of your tailpipe, but it's invisible water vapor.

I don't know of any metals used in cars that absorb water. Metal will ADSORB a film of water vapor onto its exterior, but it's a very, very small amount. Heating metal with a torch will momentarily cause water condensation to appear. This is not because the metal is releasing water... it is exactly what happens in your exhaust system: The torch involves burning a hydrocarbon (or hydrogen gas), which produces copious quantities of water vapor, which is invisible unless it strikes a surface that is cool enough to make the water vapor condense. That's what you see on the surface of the metal, at least until the metal warms up enough that it won't condense more water from the torch "exhaust".

Chris, regarding your observation, I don't know what's happening there.

TCallas

Will, WOW, I am impressed. I will take some time to review this later and try to absorb some of it. Thank you for taking the time to explain this.

Davies

Wow, my brain hurts from all this chemistry theory....I personally have never owned a car that did not drip a little condensation from the exhaust when cold.

So I think I'm agreeing with you guys here...