red GA SE
03-17-2005, 03:20 PM
Hi folks, I just registered today. Let me tell you a little bit about my car. It's a 2001 Grand Am SE with the 2.4 and a 5 speed. It's all stock now, I'll get to that soon, 2 door, stock 15" wheels and those funky 3 'spoke' hubcaps, sleeper look , lol!! Well, back last summer I 'thought' about getting an aftermarket muffler for it and settled on a stainless DTM style with 3.5" tips. I had it installed and it sounded pretty good. Nothing else was touched ahead of it, or any other engine mods. I thought it sounded good with the 5 speed, nice throaty sound while accelarating, some popping when downshifting, cool I thought. So one night my friend and I are out driving around, he's behind me in his own car. Up to this point, sometimes when downshifting, mind you I never let it rev over 4000, the popping could get pretty loud, so he's behind me and I start downshifting to stop and it pops and backfires a couple times, no big deal. When we stop he tells me 6 inch bluish white flames came out the tips of my exhaust!!!! Now I got worried that something was wrong with the car, we had been driving for quite a while, so maybe the exhaust was just really hot I figured. The car only has 36000 miles on it, so I was hoping nothing was wrong. It ran fine and still does with no problems or odd noises. I have since taken that muffler off and put my factory one back on. Has anyone else with a 2.4 and aftermarket exhaust seen or heard of this happening before. I had seen other high performance cars do this with lots of mods, but not a stock Grand Am. Just curious so I can ease my mind. I'll post some pics of my car soon. Thanks.