Took a can of sea foam to the mini today and before getting to far into the can had expected smoke out the exhaust. But... also started spewing from the exhaust manifold area. So I'm thinking the bolts are loose. Found a spec of 24nm for them and will pull the heat shield and see whats up with them.

Has anyone else seen this??

The assumption has been that the exhaust has been stock from the previous owners (2 who were related). There was no indication of any exhaust work in any of the paperwork that came with it.

 

Could be the coupler on the header. The one in our 06 parts car leaks from that area. It will eventually crack and fall apart.

 

did not know the exhaust was prine to cracking, maybe that header sitting in the garage will find its way in there sooner than expected​​​​​​

 

Are you referring to the collector gasket at the end of the exhaust manifold that connects to the back half of the exhaust?

Going to look into this today (I hope) and see if I can get it fixed. I do have an RMW header waiting to go in, planning on doing that when I get spun up on tuning.

 

I was referring to the big ball ball on the header. I believe its between the flex and the cat. There is a hidden seam and they crack around that seam. I found mine when using a torch and wd40 on the flange bolt. The smoke filled the header and came out there. My friends broke in half when driving.

 

That’s the pre-cat which splits at the seam. Pics of the failure and repair can be seen in this thread: https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...l#&gid=1&pid=1

 

got it, thanks guys... I take it bubble gum wont hold it right? <jk>

 

An update...

Using a thermal camera... I did not see anything out of the ordinary on the exhaust with the limited view available with it. Took it for a spin after looking at it and just the 1/4 can of seafoam appears to have had an impact, noticeably quicker while getting on it. I still suspect it needs to be cleaned further with the seafoam, The plan was to use the whole can, that will have to wait until I have helping hands available.

 

Yep it may have a crack and on its way to separate

 

Update...

Ok had some time to dump in more of the sea foam today and look for the exhaust leak. It is definitely coming out of the head area under the exhaust manifold shield. So that tells me either I have a bad gasket or a cracked exhaust manifold.

I looked in both places and saw zero smoke out of the joint area's down past the collector of the exhaust mani, so it looks like that is not a problem. I did however smoke out the neighborhood again :-) Letting it soak now for about 30 and then will go run it until the smoke clears. On a side note, this was the last thing I expected to find doing the sea foam treatment. And, so far still only half way thru the can. If it were not filling up the garage, I'd do the whole can.

 

Where do you dump it and how fast? I won’t tell you about my disastrous use of seafoam 15 years ago.

 

Hiya steve, remove the heatshield (only 2 bolts), that will help you determine the leak

 

@jjcsnlynn, I swapped the FPR line to the intake manifold and added in a T with a long hose plugged with a drywall screw and a zip tie. I had the rpms up at about 2k and drew in the sea foam by dropping the vacuum line in & out of the can...


Had the little woman working the throtte earlier for the above post and she motored on home. Motivated I pulled the heat shield that @nd-photo.nl mentioned and gave it a shot while it was idling on its own. surprisingly, it sucked in almost half a can w/o stalling. When I got in the cab and rev'd it up the smoke appeared and I was able to find the source. It is at the collector and at least from the top, appears to be coming from the center of the collector where the 4 exhaust port tubes are combined. So... for now it is a DGAS issue and will motor on. Eventually when I get my but in gear, meaning $ priorities first, I'll get to tuning and will swap in the header. So the last burn-off run before the little woman bolted, motor pulled really strong as expected and took a good 5 miles to get all the smoke out of the exhaust.