I dont have no friggen exhaust leak!







finally got my front manifold off.























Now that would probably explain why I am running just a tad on the rich side, even though according to the scan tool it is rapidly switching between rich and lean several times a second. either way I'd imagine this would cause a problem where a bunch of exhaust was sneaking out thru the cracks and not being metered by the O2 sensor. I'd also assume if I was running rich the PCM would put more fuel in the system and that would cause predetonation as well.

Another thing, with the cracks of this size, you can hear the exhaust leak fairly well, not sure if it is loud enough or the right frequency to trick the knock sensor into thinking its knock but it sure could be. Just a theory.

Took me about 1 hour to get it off, one broken thing..a vaccum hose for the fuel canistor. It was cracked to all hell anyway.

The rear Core I had ported did not turn out, the threads in the crossover connection are trashed and already stripped one of the new bolts I got, so I might have to play with it for a while but for now it looks like the front is the worst and that is what is going on for the time being.

Same thing with the one on the car, it strips the threads pretty bad off the crossover bolts...but only the same outside one. I've sprayed the crap out of it with PB blaster, no go...used several different kinds of wire brushes..no go....a needle to clean out the threads..no go. oh well.

I dont feel real bad about not doing the rear RIGHT NOW because first of all they dont have much weld to port out from the factory and they outflow the series 2 rear manis. I doubt there are any serious bad cracks back there since the core i ported did not have a single crack. I have looked the rear over on the car pretty good, cannot find any signs of a crack. the ported from mani should do for a while.

Oh and how the hell am i supposed to get a torque wrench in there..if i use a swivel socket it will throw the torque off slightly, not sure which direction. Keep in mind NOTHING was removed to get the manifolds out except the cruise control modulator or whatever its called.




Finally I am wondering if I should or need to put the heatsheild back on...Thoughts?

It does not seem to serve much of a purpose IMO. the shielding is on the bottom but heat rises right?

I put my shielding on. I believe it'* to preven them from cooling too quickly, and cracking.

You need a pivot-head torque wrench. That'* what I used. If you go back to my old topic, you'll see a pic of it in action.

Soo how hard was it to take off, cuz i think my front one it starting to do the same thing.. What did you hae to take off to get to it? if anything?

Wow, those cracks were huge. Nice pics.
Glad you got it fixed.
Last year Bill ran 1 sec slower with cracked manifolds but then he made a few other improvements as well.

I would use as much heat sheilding as possible. Heat radiates in all directions to heat up that engine bay.

When I removed my OEM manifolds to install the TOG'*, my crossover studs stripped out as well.
You will need to replace them or chase the threads with a die.

is that just chrome spray paint?

Ceramic Header paint good to 1800*....could not wait for the stuff willwren has to ship. I might end up putting that back on.


Results. I am still pulling Mad KR, time to put the stock pulley on I guess...however it has a crapload more power.

I'll probably start another thread about that since I pulled the results

how long have you had them on? has the chrome started to disapate?

would that stuff work for me to put on top of my black ceramic coating i already have? i really want CHROME

I would have fired the welder who did that job though. Pretty rough and just asking to re-crack from all those jagged stress risers.

Should last for a few years.

Got to Sears and get the proper taps to clean the threads on the rear mani.. if that fails, then drill them larger and use not and bolts to secure them.

Your rear mani is the same material as the front and could have equal cracks.

Get r done...

I know for a fact the rear mani is fine. I ran seafoam thru the system yesterday and there was 0 smoke whatsoever from the engine bay. The exhaust system on here is as tight as they get.

I still want to put the rear on though.