nice night... um, are those sparks coming from US!?!?

[79rabbit4dr]

I was craving a drive in the rabbit, even though I've needed to replace the head gasket all winter (haven't yet) and it's been sitting for a couple months. So my wife and I took a quick joy ride into town and grabbed a oreo shake at JITB. On the way back we have the heat on and the windows down - great combo - when I look at my side mirror and see sparks bouncing all over the road. I was speeding a bit so I slowed down and listened to try and hear any dragging metal or something grinding in the engine, nada. The sparks aren't coming out like a 4th of July fountain or anything but they seemed to come out more like... cigarette embers...? That's probably the best I can compare it. Like someone was dropping cigarettes behind me every once and a while. It wasn't constant, even stopping for a couple minutes then completely when I slowed way down. Limped home and peeked underneath, nothing hanging down. While driving it seemed like they were coming out of the tail pipe, for sure the drivers side being that I couldn't actually see the tail pipe while driving.

coolant temp normal
brakes feel the same
no new noises from anywhere in the engine compartment
steering felt the same

`81 1.6 NA 4dr rabbit
stock except timing set to .91mm (between econo and performance according to bentley)

Any ideas?
just junk from sitting being burned up in the exhaust
melting my internals

[fatmobile]

I've heard of embers coming out the exhaust.

 Usually chunks of soot built up from driving it like a little old lady,
then a vigorous drive lights them up and sets them loose.

Could be a problem when the fire hazzard alert is high.

[g-spec]

That actually happened to me once when I was running the stock exhaust still. I was driving down a back country road and opened her a little....looked in the rear view mirror and there was spraks coming out of the exhaust, especially when I got on it.

[79rabbit4dr]

*sigh of relief*

ok, good. i'm 99% sure it's the original exhaust so that's probably what it is - fingers crossed. Good thing i'm redoing the whole thing when I do the head gasket and swap in my gasser intake/exhaust mani's.

thanks for calming my nerves

[arb]

Have someone follow you tonight and observe where they are coming from... sounds like carbon to me because all the other possibilities would create noise.

[79rabbit4dr]

Have someone follow you tonight and observe where they are coming from... sounds like carbon to me because all the other possibilities would create noise.

hahaha... now why didn't I think of that!?

thanks!!!