phrenzykEG6

I just recently bought a 1993 hatch, on my way driving it home... the motor started hissing REALLY bad. I didn't know what it was at first, we got it home after the 3 hour drive, and the hissing/humming sound was coming from under the hood somewhere, and from the muffler. I also noticed a huge loss of power... So I'm thinking a major exhaust leak from where the header attaches to the bpipe... But can that really cause a major loss of power, plus rattling, plus the humming/hissing sound?

Also, the car wasn't passing smog before i bought it, the swap is a jdm d15b vtec, it has a chipped p28 ecu, all the after market stuff was exchanged with stock stuff, so the intake and header are stock, the muffler looks stock but it isn't, the cat was just replaced, the only thing i can think of is that the chipped ecu is causing the car to fail, does this sound at all accurate to anyone? If so I have to find a cheap virgin p28 and sync it so I can reg the car.

Any thoughts or opinions would be very helpful, or maybe to give me some peace of mind that my thoughts are accurate xD!

Thanks in advance.

Ruben19

loss of power has nothing to do with the exhaust leak. now you need to figure out where the noise is coming from. hopefully is not coming inside the engine

phrenzykEG6

The noises that are happening are rattling which sounds like an exhaust rattle, humming or hissing is coming out of the muffler and somewhere under the hood, but it comes out of the muffler super loud... I was reading that if you have a major exhaust leak it can cause loss of power and it makes sense because when the sound started that's when I noticed the loss of power... I thought it was an intake manifold leak but since the sound is coming from the muffler mostly, I don't see how that can be.

phrenzykEG6

I jacked up the car today, the flange right by the cat is like almost 100% unbolted... It's causing the rattle and the hissing sound, but I'm not sure about the power loss, I didn't have time to fix it.

Anyways about the emissions fail in CA, I actually live in reno nv and its easier to smog here, but does anyone know if a jdm d15b vtec motor will even smog? and if so will a chipped p28 be a cause for it to fail? everything else is stock except it has a z6 intake manifold... Any info would be a great help, thanks!