consolidatedbord

First off, here is my setup:

1995 d15
AEM cool air intake
AEM fuel rail
Tsudo exahust
Air Mass header
skunk2 intake manifold

Here is the situation:

I installed the header about a month and a half ago using that same setup mentioned above, minus the intake manifold, and everything seemed to run fine. What I did have to do was remove the stock donut shaped gasket from the inside of the cat, to make room for the new bigger piping from the header. It didn't quite fit in the cat, so I popped a couple of exhaust gaskets on the flange between the header and the cat. This seemed to run fine, with a little bit of an exhuast leak and raspy sound. Not too big of a deal. I installed the intake manifold 3 weeks ago and minus having to re-run the throttle cable, and cable from the throttle body to the tranny, everything was pretty much ok. I ran the car fine for two weeks. Last week I was at a red light, and as soon as I put my foot on the gas, the car stalled on me. (WTF, since when do automatics stall???) Turned it off, back on, seemed fine. I stop by a local gas station to take a look and there is a huge gust of hot air coming off the back of the header. Oh ****, the gaskets blew. Left it for a few hours, then started it up again (or tried to at least) but no luck. Fired it up a second time, and all was fine. My buddy and I took off the header and cat, and tried to grind and shape the end of the header to make it fit inside of the cat without any issues. (I really shouldn't be using 2 or 3 gaskets for a seal anyways) This didn't help. Started up, and the car seems to put pretty bad now, with a huge exhaust leak and crap loads of heat.

A buddy of mine is going to make me a test pipe that I can throw on there for now to at least stop the leak. I have a few questions...

Obviously without slightly larger injectors, and so much done to the intake/exahust I'm running a bit lean. I never thought this could be a problem, especially since the car had been running fine for a few weeks. Is running too lean a progressive problem and gets worse with time?

My initial thought was that the exhaust leak was causing a huge loss in back pressure, thus causing the engine to putt a lot, and then eventually die.

I know that some cars can lose performance due to lack of back pressure. Will putting a test pipe to close the exhaust leak mess it up more, or will it actually perform better?

I can't imagine what else could be causing this because my car has been running lean for some time, and the car didn't start dying until after the header flange gasket had been blown away.

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks much.


Edit:

I know that it can cut performance having the leak, but causing the engine to stall????


Modified by consolidatedbord at 11:34 PM 6/14/2004

Dean80Z28

I've never heard of an exhaust leaking causing an engine to stall. I'd say more like a vacuum leak, if anything. Check that intake manifold, check your throttle body, make sure everything is sealed up nicely.

Lord Helmet

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Dean80Z28 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I've never heard of an exhaust leaking causing an engine to stall. I'd say more like a vacuum leak, if anything. Check that intake manifold, check your throttle body, make sure everything is sealed up nicely.</TD></TR></TABLE>


I agree that's one of the first thing I would look over carefully. I hope you got a new gasket when you changed out the skunk2 manifold and made sure all the vacuum lines are in their proper place without any small pin ****** in them.

consolidatedbord

Well, I just got done replacing the gasket and now it runs great. Sure enough everything runs GREAT again. I knew that replacing the gasket would fix the exhaust leak, but I was puzzled by the fact that it actually caused the engine to die a few times, and take a few turn overs to actually fire up again. I knew it couldn't be the intake manifold installation though, cuz, yes, I did replace the gasket. I didn't replace the TB gasket, but I did use some Edelbrock gasket sealant to beef it up a bit.

Thanks for the responses, much appreciated.

Dean80Z28

I won't question it.. lol. Wierd, but glad you fixed it.

v4lu3s

an exhaust leak wont cause an engine to stall.

consolidatedbord

I'm not saying you're wrong, but it seemed to have been causing my problem. Car is still running stronger than ever, and no apparents leaks, stalls, or putting feel. Idles smoothe again.