well on my way to work today (its been pouring rain for 3 days) i felt a nice thud under my seat and the whole car just started vibrating and making a chug chug chug sound. i quickly turned around a went strait home, poped the hood and this horrible smell like rotten eggs mixed with exhaust just poured out the smell seems like coming from the rear manifold but its hard to tell because its so strong i was getting dizzy turned off the car and di a quick check of the headers but i cant seem to find where the leak is. i think 1 of 2 things happend.
1. my rear engine mount has been bad for months putting stress on the headers cracking them.
2. i recently wrapped the flexpipe and the water getting trapped in the wrap heating up cracked some welds under the wrap.

am i misisng somthing here? the car is not drivable because the massave vibration and exhaust smell.

 

rotten eggs smell is often the cat plugged- that could force backpressure

Use a piece of hose to listen for leaks at the headers

 

wouldn't the cat being plugged throw a code? because no CEL has come on yet, how would it get plugged?

 

Plugged cat and increase backpressure will cause an increase in low-to-mid end torque, but the rpm will be very sluggish to spin up (i.e., reduced high end horsepower). So it is very easy to notice if such happens.

 

i should update that i fixed the probelm, turns out it was a combination of a bad coil pack on cylinder 6 that wasnt throwing a code, and an exhuast leak on the rear manifold. bought new header gaskets and a new coil pack and all is good in the world again.