can an exhaust leak cause problems similar to a vaccum leak? its leaking right where the #7 cylinder meets the exhaust manifold, not even big enough to hear, the only reason i found it was when i used some of that seafoam stuff and saw the white smoke coming from there. thanks -dave

 

nope, but if the leak is big enouph and you run the car long enouph you can burn a valve

oh and the reason the smoke comes out of the exsaust is that it travles through all the vacuum lines into the intake and gets burned up in the cylinders and pushed out the exsasst

 

The exhaust leak can't affect the fuel pressure. But it can cause air to be inducted into the leak, and for that air to cause a "false" lean, making that bank of the engine run excessively rich. In that respect, its worse than a vacuum leak. A vacuum leak causes the engine to run lean, but the long term fuel corrections can compensate bringing it back to the correct A/F ratio. A "false" lean screws things up.

 

You can also get false knock and cause the computer to pull timing.This makes the car slow down real bad.

 

that could be why my banks are always differant. im just gonna buy headers and see what happens. thanks -dave

 

could an exhaust leak cause my car to backfire through the intake when i give it roughly 1/2 throttle from a stop?