How do you guys keep you garage/ man cave from smelling like gas/exhaust?

[ryanchevelle]

Figured the best place to ask is here. Sorry if its been covered before.



I have a 3 car attached garage and I've filled it to the brim with muscle cars (3 lifts so 6 cars in the garage). These cars are nut and bolt type restoration cars for the most part so they aren't leaking gas etc. even when it was just 1 or 2 cars the garage had this smell. It just smells like classic cars I guess. combination of a gas smell/exhaust type smell if I had to guess.



I'd like a solution to this as if i go out to enjoy them even for 5 min when I come back into the house the smell is on my clothes. If you open the door to the house the smell comes inside. And I'm not referring to starting them up, I'm referring to just them being stored.



I'm guessing there is a solution as I can't imagine these indoor dealers have this issue. Or a lot of the nice man cave garages I see. Is it changing out the gas caps to something different for storage? adding a filter to the garage? the garage is climate controlled with a mini split A/C.



I know the smell of exhaust comes with vintage muscle, but even after airing the garage out this smell never goes away.



Solutions?

[1967 4K]

To me it’s an aroma not a smell, but my wife hates it! LOL 😂

[169indy]

Step #1 and Cheapest; Get a few circulating desk fans and set them up for 24hr operation on "low speed" and see if it changes.
Just a W-A-G attempt.

[Too Many Projects]

Sounds like your garage is sealed pretty tight for the climate control and may be part of the issue. It can't breath and let some of that smell/air get out.

All the '69's in your sig should have non-vented gas caps. If any of them have vented caps, they should be changed. You could try putting tennis balls in the tail pipes to prevent the odor from escaping from the exhaust system. Normally, I wouldn't suggest sealing them, but with the A/C, the air should be dry enough to prevent condensation. Maybe try that for a few weeks and see if there is a difference in the level of the odor.

[chevyman0429]

Had the same issue until I installed an attic fan in the garage. Problem solved !

[sixt9rsx33]

Ryan, I too have a three car with a mini-split but only one lift and daily drivers in my garage. At times have three old cars in the garage. This is what I observed when I had this issue. If I just took my cars out for a quick drive or just started them and moved them the cars with the Holley carbs tended to drip more often than the Quadrajet carbs. During Covid I rebuilt all my Holley carbs and solved that problem. I think it is a known fact that the Holley design is just prone to drip, and dripping carb even slightly will smell up a garage. I make it a practice when I start one of my Holley equipped carbs I get it hot in order to let the gaskets swell and hopefully seal better. Probably just me being silly but I do make that a practice. Regarding the smell in your clothes...forget it part of the deal and not going to change no matter what you do.

[RPOLS3]

cars with the Holley carbs tended to drip more often than the Quadrajet carbs. During Covid I rebuilt all my Holley carbs and solved that problem. I think it is a known fact that the Holley design is just prone to drip, and dripping carb even slightly will smell up a garage. .

Similar experience here. Once I swapped the old (and evidently leaky) speed shop Holley for the Eric restored 4492 my garage raw fuel odors were virtually eliminated.

[L78_Nova]

I've only really noticed that if I put a car away hot as some fuel will evaporate out of the carb vents.
As a rule I let them sit outside for a short period before putting them in the garage.

[Lynn]

Agree with Mitch on the non vented caps. Make sure you have no leaks anywhere from tank to carb.

In addition, my experience is that cars with Holley carbs open element air cleaners evaporate gas out the the float bowls more quickly. Air is always circulating to some degree, and speeds evaporation.

If you know it isn't going to be driven for a while, just connect the two vents tubes together with a rubber hose. BUT.... make certain you write yourself a note to remove before driving.

Last resort would be an air to air exchanger, but that is a minimum $500 just for the exchanger, plus your time to install.

[ryanchevelle]

I appreciate the responses. And yes the Holley carbs are evaporating because if the cars sit a while you really have to crank away to get gas back to the carb on that initial start.

But what I’m really looking for is an answer to what the dealers it big time collectors do. I see these amazing man cave garages with All the signs and vintage gas pumps and the inside is prestine. I doubt they smell terrible inside. My goal is to build or buy a garage and set it up this way, maybe with a poker or pool table etc for guys nights.

[Too Many Projects]

I appreciate the responses. And yes the Holley carbs are evaporating because if the cars sit a while you really have to crank away to get gas back to the carb on that initial start.

But what I’m really looking for is an answer to what the dealers it big time collectors do. I see these amazing man cave garages with All the signs and vintage gas pumps and the inside is prestine. I doubt they smell terrible inside. My goal is to build or buy a garage and set it up this way, maybe with a poker or pool table etc for guys nights.


This scenario isn't really how you worded your first question, hence the "garage" solutions.
For what you want, you'll need to install a system that constantly circulates the air over a period of hours, filtering the air for dust, pollen, etc. and possibly charcoal to remove odors. Heating, cooling, and dehumidifying it to what ever you want. Basically a commercial air exchanger. If the space you are referring to is small enough you could, possibly, get by with a high output capacity furnace A/C with added filters and leave the fan on constantly.

[flyingn]

my wife loves the smell of racing gas exhaust. :) No reason to get rid of it

[ZiggyL78]

I didn't read this whole thread. My house is less than 10 years old and we moved in 5 years ago. It has a double car garage which does not have an entrance to the house from the garage. 2 walls and the ceiling are part of the house. I don't normally let my cars idle in the garage for more than a minute. I don't leave any liquid containers open for very long. My house never smells of gas or exhaust fumes. What does smell is my clothes when I am working on a car. If I don't put on fresh pants and a shirt within say 3 days my bedroom will smell like a shop. I usually put a fresh shirt on each day but sometimes I will wear the same pants for a week. I do put clean clothes on later in the day when I have finished working in the garage.

The strongest smells I find are cleaning solvents and spray paint. Lacquer thinner, grease & wax remover, used oil and spray primer are the worst. Rags that have any of those liquids on them are stored in a sealed plastic bag and then thrown out. I don't normally spill anything on myself. It seems that these smells just get into the air and then into my clothes. They are more noticeable in the winter when the large door is closed compared to the summer when the door is open and I have 2 large fans blowing from the back towards the front. It may also help if you rig up some kind of sensor to turn those fans on for say 2 minutes when you enter and leave with a car.

Crushed rose petals soaked in lavender poured down the carb will sweeten the exhaust fumes. ;) Don't tell my wife that I buy roses for the car and not her. lol.

[Rsconv68]

If I were you, I would drain all the fuel tanks and add CamII 120 Octane to all the cars. Start them for 5 minutes and shut them off. Let that magnificent scent linger for days. I even ran it in my riding lawnmower and weedwacker.

[ZiggyL78]

I don't know if all racing fuels have an odor. I ran C16 in all my turbo cars and it has no odor.
I also ran unleaded race fuel on the street. It smells like weed killer. DO NOT SNORT THIS STUFF.

[ryanchevelle]

Race fuel smells great to me. That’s not the smell I’m encountering. I wish I could pinpoint it, but it’s more like old exhaust fumes and old stale gas, which doesn’t make sense to linger so long. I just hoped some of the hardcore collectors could chime in and tell me what kind of filtration systems they were using because my mini split isn’t bringing in fresh air and I’m going to eventually look to build a nice garage to fully enjoy my collection.

[60sStuff]

Here’s what I did and it works perfectly ….. for me.

When I had my small back yard garage built for my two Survivor GTO’s, I designed the back wall to have 4 exhaust fans installed.

Since I back my cars in I purposely located the 2 pair of fans directly in line with the 2 cars tailpipes.
These fans are quiet, powerful and efficiently pull the air from the pipes and entire garage with the front garage door open.
The fans have automatic shutters to keep the critters out, plus I installed the galvanized hoods on the outside to protect from the rain.

Open the front garage door.
Flip the single wall switch for all 4 fans.
Start the cars, let them run and you won’t smell like a 60’s muscle car exhaust when you go into the house later.

[ryanchevelle]

Thank you. Very good idea! I don't think I can incorporate that into my garage based on how its set up, but I like the idea. My garage shares common walls with the house on the garage back wall and 1 side. Also have a second story bedroom above the garage. So that only leaves one side wall to add ventilation. Ventilation or air circulation appears to be the answer thou so I'm going to look into my options. Or maybe just live with it until I can find a permanant solution for storing the cars as again its already packed full and its more of a storage locker at this point then somewhere I can enjoy the cars. This hobby has been something I wanted to do for years so when I finally got into it its become an obsession and I ran out of room fast. Thanks for potential solutions so far guys, keep them coming.

[Mr70]

..move. :)