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Exhaust fumes when pulling trailer

Brentc

Active member
My wife has commented that she is getting exhaust fumes when we have our 622 trailer on behind the rt. Anyone else notice this? Wondering if there is any sort of exhaust tip, or air deflector combination that might redirect the air flow to help it get swept away and not recirculated upward toward the passenger......:dontknow:
 
My wife has commented that she is getting exhaust fumes when we have our 622 trailer on behind the rt. Anyone else notice this? Wondering if there is any sort of exhaust tip, or air deflector combination that might redirect the air flow to help it get swept away and not recirculated upward toward the passenger......:dontknow:
Others have reported this in the past. Do a search on exhaust fumes and you'll come up with hits going back several years. There are comments about why this happens and a suggestion or two how to mitigate it. Someone at one time did mention exhaust tips. You'll get a lot more useful information with a search than waiting for responses here.

Also, one huge benefit of doing a search rather than waiting for responses here is you'll find comments and suggestions from members who have not been on the board for months or years, and may never be back, but have offered up good information in the past.
 
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Little checking..

Being you have a 2014 and most of the information will be for earlier models you may not find much. Deflectors would probably be the best way cause I have not seen any tips for the stock exhausts as yet. Many have changed the exhausts and may not have this problem. Hope there are some that have found a good solution to the newer models with this issue..good luck...:thumbup:
 
Being you have a 2014 and most of the information will be for earlier models you may not find much. Deflectors would probably be the best way cause I have not seen any tips for the stock exhausts as yet. Many have changed the exhausts and may not have this problem. Hope there are some that have found a good solution to the newer models with this issue..good luck...[emoji106]
Air flow around the rear of the RT is the culprit and I think that's probably much the same for all years of RT.

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I think you are both right

After posting my original message I did some searching and did find a few hits. And I was also thinking that the trailer was affecting the original airflow in the rear of trailer. Found one person who, as you mentioned, added some exhaust tips but looks like they haven't Ben active in a few years on Spyderlovers. I may end up doing some experimenting with my local muffler shop to see if they can make me a few different extensions. My first inclination would be to angle out away from bike and then try angling down if that doesn't work.
 
I had the same comments on my trip to South Dakota..I couldn't smell anything but she was saying the exhaust fumes were more than normal..
 
She wear a full face helmet?? If so lace the chin guard with something nice & she will never know. :)
Also try to see if there is a passing vehicle to blame smell on, get her mind off it anyway.
Good luck
 
I noticed the fumes as well. The RT does have the aerodynamics of bringing the air from the rear back up and around. This is obvious on wet roads and the spray hitting the back of your neck. I suspect any mud flaps worsen the effect so I have made one of mine quick removal and only use it in wet conditions. This has improved my situation.
 
I've messed around with airflow on vehicles for years. I always get a chuckle out of folks with air scoops facing forward on the hoods of the cars or people running the so called deer whistles. Anyway, if you want to get a general idea of which way the airflow is going over a given location on your spyder, tape some small strips of white plastic garbage bag material in the area your interested in, and take a test drive. Preferably on a calm day. Obviously you'll have to have a friend follow you, or swap rides with a friend, to see which way the air flow is going around back of your spyder. Experiment a little with placement of the strips and length of the strips and you'll learn a lot. It may surprise you and could only take the smallest modification to resolve your problem. Good luck and keep momma happy because if mom's not happy, nobody's happy.
 
I've been doing the same thing 2dogs, messing with airflow on vehicles for years - altho I tend to use 3" tassels of brightly coloured wool & a camera or 2 aimed at what I want to watch instead of strips of garbage bag (no-one gets upset if one or two of them blow off, it's hard enough to see them from a distance, let alone accuse me of littering! ;) )

For a while now (since our last extended 2up ride in teeming rain - 12 hours solid!) I've been toying with an air 'scoop' or 'wing' (actually, mostly a modified trunk lid top rack like those from Rivco :opps: ) to try & redirect some airflow from up around the rider/pillion shoulders/head area & the top of the rear trunk down into the low pressure turbulent air behind the Spyder.... but I'm beginning to think it's gonna be too hard to get enough air flow from that area to make a big enough difference! I might need to duct some air from up front somewhere into/around the rear wheel down fairly low in order to get enough volume into that 'pocket' of turbulence....

The area of relatively low pressure turbulent air behind the RT is pretty big rather than just a pocket, & it gets bigger if you raise the windscreen; so it's not surprising that the pillion passenger gets wet from behind in the rain or that some exhaust smell gets sucked up into the even lower pressure air pocket that the rider/pillion sit in!! I realky don't think angled exhaust tips will do much, except maybe in your mind! My little dog who sits in the tank bag in front of me gets his fur blown forwards, TOWARDS the windscreen pretty much all the time, & my RT already has the lower openings in the windscreen! Maybe a really biiiig windscreen vent would lessen that low pressure air pocket that sucks everything into it, but then it'd probably create a heap more buffeting too!! I reckon I'm gonna keep trying with the re-direction of air from up high & up front for a while! :thumbup:
 
My little dog who sits in the tank bag in front of me gets his fur blown forwards, TOWARDS the windscreen pretty much all the time, & my RT already has the lower openings in the windscreen! Maybe a really biiiig windscreen vent would lessen that low pressure air pocket that sucks everything into it, but then it'd probably create a heap more buffeting too!! I reckon I'm gonna keep trying with the re-direction of air from up high & up front for a while! :thumbup:
My flags that are mounted on the trunk fly backwards and beat the antennas all the time! On wet roads the backside of my windshield gets dirtier than the front side does. I have a mud flap that prevents the rooster tail water spray.
 
I wouldn't be too concerned as you are riding in the open air. Back in the 60's when I was growing up, we did family vacations with a 57 Ford Wagon towing a 17 ft Mallard trailer. There were seven kids in my family and at least there were three of us in the back of the wagon with the window up. Now in that case..... we had PLENTY of exhaust backflow of exhaust into the car. While it might have contributed to our snarky personalities, I would rather point to the times when there were four of us back learning how to live with less space.
 
I may end up doing some experimenting with my local muffler shop to see if they can make me a few different extensions. My first inclination would be to angle out away from bike and then try angling down if that doesn't work.

Please post some pics of your solution; good luck! :thumbup:
 
Peter Aawen and 2Dogs,
Since you guys have played around with "wind", have either one of you ever tried / or do you think if a person installed a back trunk luggage rack, that was the straight flat horizontal type that it would alter some of the back draft coming from the rear? The rack platform would probably have to be a solid flat piece I assume instead of an open rack? Could buy the straight rack and add plexiglas or similar to either the top or bottom of the rack to make it solid. Would it act like a deflector or not? I suppose I could try a mock up with plywood and attach it temporarily somehow and try it myself as well unless you have already done it and have a result.:dontknow:. Goldwing made a back passenger air foil that has mixed reviews for working and looks so I thought a flat rack might fill a dual purpose[2015 RTS] safe riding!
 
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Trikerbiker, I have tried a flat 'luggage rack' with a solid tray (I used plywood!) - in fact, so far that's been the most successful thing I've tried as far as stopping water/rain getting sucked up & onto the back of the rider/pillion; and it certainly lessens the 'forward blowing' of the woollen threads along the top & sides of the passenger backrest, so I reckon it hasta be pretty good at stopping the exhaust fumes being sucked up & forwards from behind the Spyder too (but that's a bit harder to confirm!!) But it didn't do much to the 'up & in' blowing of the threads on the handgrips, top sides, & leading edges of the panniers!! :(

Sooo, I still suspect that the substantial 'low pressure turbulent air pocket' in front of the rider formed by the windscreen & fairing up front of the Spyder will tend to suck exhaust fumes 'up & in' towards the rider/pillion tho, simply because of the fact that for that to happen the way it currently does in the first place, the low pressure area is obviously substantial enough to 'suck' pretty damn hard, & it's going to take a whole lot of re-directed air or increased air pressure to counter that, even if the flat luggage rack tray does minimise the 'up & over the rear' suction & spray from the back!! I reckon it's gonna take a lot more than just angled Baker Air Wings too, I'm leaning towards ducting from right up front to channel/pipe airflow into the right spots....

As for mudflaps stopping anything but lumpy debris & the bulk of the 'up & over the rear' stuff - they didn't have any effect at all on spray out the sides that then got sucked 'up & in', & therefore they cannot have reduced the amount of exhaust fumes heading the same way!! In fact, if anything fitting bigger mudflaps increased the sideways out & up spray & air flow, simply by deflecting a lot of the spray out that way in the first place, where it was rapidly caught in the fairly substantial air-flow up & in so that pretty much all of it ended up on the rider side of the windscreen (or on the rider/pillion! :sour: ). I've tried quite a few different varieties/sizes of mud-flaps too, from small extensions of the existing rigid plastic shield/s to full on 'all the way across the rear of the RT' mudflaps extending almost to the ground & all the way across from the outside/bottom of the pannier right across to the far outside/bottom of the pannier on the opposite side!! :opps:

It's a whole lotta fun, innit?!? People think my multi-coloured thread covered Spyder looks even more interesting than it does with just the tupperware - I've even been stopped by the local Constabulary so they could get a pic of the Spyder in the fraying 'woollie Pullie' (it'd probably drive a Kiwi country boy crazy!! All that coloured wool!! :shocked: )

Have Fun - I know I am! :thumbup:
 
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It's a whole lotta fun, innit?!? People think my multi-coloured thread covered Spyder looks even more interesting than it does with just the tupperware - I've even been stopped by the local Constabulary so they could get a pic of the Spyder in the fraying 'woollie Pullie' (it'd probably drive a Kiwi country boy crazy!! All that coloured wool!! :shocked: )

Have Fun - I know I am! :thumbup:



I would like to see a picture of the multi-colored thread covered Spyder!
 
doesnt one of our sponsers sell one already for the trunk that you are asking. (sealboards)

I don't under stand how that would help the fume smell at times??
 
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