Hmmm... where to start?
Had to find the exhaust leak on my newly installed Pacesetters... lol, yeah, don't rush to judgement here until done reading, lol.
SO I seafoamed the Vac. lines hoping it would reveal itself. A real small tick, but it was there. I also was getting some EGR codes which were baffling me. Anyways, no good, smoke didn't show anything. But the side benefit was the engine seemed a bit smoother at idle after the foam treatment. lol
So now what... back to the garage and time to look real close. In the mean time, I lost a little bolt holding the EGR heat plate on the LIM job, so I wanted to replace it... while doing that the culprit was spotted, a very small brown/black patch where the EGR tube attaches to the rear header. Ok, simple fix right? Just take the EGR off, see what's up, maybe a little rtv, whatever, re-install and done... BUT,... nooooo....
The damned bolt securing the EGR tube to the header plate strippedalmost impossible to get at WITHOUT taking the headers apart! NOW... mind you, this thought was infuriating me because I installed the infamous PACESETTERS without a hitch, no leaks anywhere on the crossover, the Y, collector, etc.
So anyways... to make the long story, well... long...
I had to remove the headersAlmost a total disassembly, go the bolt off, replaced it (had an extra thank goodness), not something I really wanted to do, but it turned out to be a good thing. I checked the main tubes of the headers prior to install, but never thought to check the EGR... there was casting or weld slag in there that caught the egr tube and when I wrenched it down, it crushed it because it couldn't go nowhere. So I had to reshape the egr flex tube end gingerly, grind out the inside of the header egr tube on the headers and put everything back together.
What a freakin PITA... but I think the 2nd install went much better, everything seemed to fit real good, lol... BTW, those Stainless Band Clamps are the *&^(^%... No need for welding anything.
Anyways, that's what I did to my car, now she sounds perfect, no little tick and I hope this does away with that EGR code. We'll see...
Regards!