I have been inadvertently at fault with my older diesels from time to time. One morning, I had stopped at a 7 Eleven for a coffee, on my way to work. I got back into my 91 Dodge and hit the key just as an attractive young woman in a cream-colored dress stepped around the back of the truck. She was totally enveloped in black smoke. I averted my head and drove away. She was saying something but I couldn't hear it.
Another time, I had the truck loaded with a lift of lumber and was pulling a trailer loaded with timbers. I and the car behind me had just pulled on to the main road. He was, apparently, not wanting to be behind the heavily loaded truck and trailer and whipped out to pass just as I walked on it to gain speed for an upshift. He was right beside the exhaust when the black smoke rolled; his window was open! He backed off and, I swear, you couldn't see into that car! I felt kind of bad for a second or two then couldn't help but laugh. I'm a jerk.
On the potato in the exhaust; a friend had set of headers with a by pass on his 64 Chev. He didn't have the cps for the headers so he decided to try shoving a potato into the header to block it off. He called it the "Spud header system". When he stepped on the gas, the potatoes would blow out and the car would roar. As long as he drove carefully, they stayed put. I don't think anyone was hurt by a flying spud but the danger existed. GD
