will an exhaust leak make my car lose power?

I currently have: aem short ram, aem pullies, dc header (POS) i know, carsound hiflow cat, apexi ws exhaust.

I got my 97 honda prelude Sh dynoed and it only put down 162hp and 132lbs. I was kinda disappointed. The weather conditions were also terrible, it was easily over 90 degrees in the room. This was after i added a fuel regulator to compensate for my car running extremely rich.

thanks guys

 

What kind of dyno was it?

 

dynojet

3rd gear pull

 

How bad is the exhast leak? It can rob some power but not that much. I think your car should be doing high 160's to low 170's... high temperature can also effect the dyno results. I've seen differences of 5-8 hp. It might be as easy as just doing a routine tune-up (plugs, oil change etc...). How many miles do you have on your motor? Maybe you should do a compression check to see if your motor is still healthy or you could dyno it on a cooler day.


Modified by @ries at 3:27 AM 5/17/2004

 

can it make your car lose power? yes

usually it'll make the car feel more powerful though, but there is no answer for sure, because an exhaust leak can affect torque throughout the rev band, or only at some points (ie low end torque is better and/or high end power is gone).

pretty much the only thing you can say for sure is that you'll use a bit more gas.

there is no real way for you to know how it affected your power other than fixing it and dynoing again.

i think the hot conditions probably hurt your #'s more than your exhaust leak.

do you know where the leak is? that definitely makes a difference.

 

if you don't know where the exhaust leak... get a spray bottle of water and spray at the flanges and see if it bubbles.

 

thanks guys