I have an exhaust leak on the driver side of the car.. I tried putting some ATF in the brake booster to make the car smoke (like seafoam). A bunch of smoke came out of the right side of the engine compartment (drivers side) , but i cant find out where it came from.. I redid the gaskets on the headers themselves.. They are copper by the way.. Then i tightened the first primary till my wrench almost snapped and i redid the Y pipe and its still leaking!!! WTF!!! Is there any special ways of tracking down an exhaust leak? or what else could it be?? I checked the O2 aswell and put some rtv on the threads.. not that either.. Im about to throw in the towel..

 

Hey Davie Man, I used to live in Hollywood/Fort Lauderdale, lol. Anyway, MAC Headers have a problem with not having flat flanges. When you put the headers on it just tears them up. What kind of gaskets did you use? People have had the best results with stock manifold gaskets. Good Luck

Edit: Ahhh, I see you said copper gaskets. That may be your problem. You may need to switch back to stockers

 

They didnt leak before.. and they arent leaking at the heads.. Its somewhere past that.. I just cant seem to find it.. I have copper header gaskets.

 

You could mix a soapy solution with water and spray a little bit of it where all of the gaskets are and see if you can visually see it. Somewhat similar to a tire in water to spot a leak...

 

Probly not a good Idea putting oil in the brake booster, nothing but air usualy is in there.
I would track the leak down as well as posible by sound first, if that dosent locate it a peice of paper or if posible your hand can find a exhaust leak

 

lol, your hand can find a hot header as well. Just kidding. The ATF is fine, but I would have used Seafoam, kill two birds with one stone More than likely it is at the Y-pipe fitting if you have ruled out the head.

 

It seems to be at the y pipe... I cant get it to stop leaking though.. There is no sign of a leak.. BUt if you looked under my hood.. thats the only thing that can leak!!!! AAAHHH!!! This is soo frustrating.. It looks to me like the flange on the y pipe is too big for the header.. think RTV would solve this?

 

not a chance

Do you have gaskets on the flange?

 

no gaskets.. Its the male female type..

 

I had a leak at the flange. Could not find it for the longest time. It turned out one of the bolts snapped in the flange but was not visible until I took it apart. Taking the bolts out was a bitch. I had to have a muffler shop heat them with a torch. When the bolt was replaced the leak was gone.

 

if there is no gasket than the bolts are not tight enogh or the Y pipe is bent at the flange.

 

My point was.... They make gaskets for the flange. It may be worth your while to try one. They make both paper and rubber gaskets for them.

 

My mac headers are a 2 piece design on the drivers side, mine leaked there, where they come together, in the past.

 

Try this: With the tailpipe(s) cold, have someone plug them by holding a rag or something over the ends. The idea is to create some backpressure. You'll immediately hear the leaks further up the system. Follow your ears...

 

Got that bitch.. Its the first primary.. STILL leaking.. and bad.. Im trying to figure out how to seal it.. it doesnt wanna seal right.. ill figure it out.. darn POS headers.. If anyof you are interested in these headers let me know.. they will be up for sale in about 2 weeks..