Exhaust noise & smell & bad vibration

[slaughterj]

Did some mildly spirited driving (far from excessive) yesterday, and had a problem. The exhaust noise changed and I smelled a bit more exhaust smell, and the car seemed to run a bit rougher (maybe a touch down on power?), primarily at low (under 2k) rpms, having a bad vibration at around 1500 rpms and lower (could feel the vibration severely through the gas pedal and stick shift). I jacked up the car to see if maybe an exhaust piece came loose, e.g., a clamp loosened, but all looked good, though I didn't remove the side sills to see if there was anything that far upstream that was a problem. Thoughts on the possible problem?

 

[FE 065]

Re: Exhaust noise & smell & bad vibration

In what way did the exhaust note change? Louder?
What kind of vibration? Does it vibrate when the car is sitting still?
Does the problem seem to be more on one side of the car than the other?
More info.

 

[slaughterj]

Re: Exhaust noise & smell & bad vibration

In what way did the exhaust note change? Louder?
What kind of vibration? Does it vibrate when the car is sitting still?
Does the problem seem to be more on one side of the car than the other?
More info.

Followups - exhaust doesn't seem louder, but with a different...tempo?

The vibration is rough, not sure how else to describe it - it doesn't vibrate when at idle (i.e., not when in neutral at a stop), and no apparent vibration really over 2k rpms.

Hadn't noticed it to be oriented to one side or the other, as it only does the problem as I'm driving at lower rpms.

One thought I had was that maybe something came loose in the sidesill exhaust section, to change the exhaust tempo (i.e., not all the exhaust going through the Corsa resonators), resulting in the increased smell (not much so though, and only when stopping), and maybe the low rpms result in a frequency that vibrates the loose piece? No idea really though, very much speculative...

 

[99 R/T 10]

Re: Exhaust noise & smell & bad vibration

Burned a valve? Just guessing......... Good luck John.

 

[jcaspar1]

Re: Exhaust noise & smell & bad vibration

Check the cats. I did the Corsa/Random Tech cat upgrade and one of the cats had an incomplete weld under the heat shield. Was leaking. i got it rewelded twice and I think it is still leaking a bit. It gives off that sulfur like smell. Also has a ticking sound particularly when deceling using engine braking.

 

[slaughterj]

Re: Exhaust noise & smell & bad vibration

Check the cats. I did the Corsa/Random Tech cat upgrade and one of the cats had an incomplete weld under the heat shield. Was leaking. i got it rewelded twice and I think it is still leaking a bit. It gives off that sulfur like smell. Also has a ticking sound particularly when deceling using engine braking.

That's why I thought to take a peak under the side sills (esp. since all further downstream looked tight)...

 

[ViperJoe]

Re: Exhaust noise & smell & bad vibration

Plugs, wires, cats?
02 sensors?
Codes?
Tank of bad gas?
Fuel filter?

Keep us posted!

 

[FE 065]

Re: Exhaust noise & smell & bad vibration

I've had a '94 Viper engine running before with short pipes that terminated where the flex is. It didn't cause any vibration or odd sound other than louder. While that doesn't prove anything necessarily, my untrained opinion is you've got more symptoms than a loose pipe would cause.
You could try pulling plug wires one at a time with the engine running, or I guess you could pull a plug wire with the engine off, then start it. The engine should run worse each time of course. If it doesn't run worse on a particular cylinder, then you've found which cylinder is having problems.
Pull some plugs too. See if one of them is wet or odd looking.
We're pullin for you...

 

[genXgts]

Re: Exhaust noise & smell & bad vibration

hey Slaughter,

Take the five minutes to pull the sills and see what is going on, ,a backed off clamp, or broken clamp will throw off clues as you describe!!

Good time to toss the OEM sheet metal screws. I put in Moroso rim screws in there place and they work great, bite down real nice!

take it easy,

 

[slaughterj]

Re: Exhaust noise & smell & bad vibration

Thanks for all the responses thus far.

No engine light = no codes?
Was about 3/4 down in gas, happened all of a sudden.
Fuel filter's relatively new (5 or 10k miles)
Plugs have ~15k on them (wires have ~5k), was going to change them in 5k more miles - I'll try the plug wire thing, that's easy enough.

hey Slaughter,

Take the five minutes to pull the sills and see what is going on, ,a backed off clamp, or broken clamp will throw off clues as you describe!!

Good time to toss the OEM sheet metal screws. I put in Moroso rim screws in there place and they work great, bite down real nice!

take it easy,

Ryan, tell me of these screws of yours? Are they good? Where can I get some good screws? What's so good about these screws? I like my screws to "bite down real nice"

 

[slaughterj]

Re: Exhaust noise & smell & bad vibration

And the winners are ViperJoe & ViperGTS2002FE!

Took it around the corner last night before trying anything to make sure it still was a problem, threw a code (Service Engine Soon light is on), figured I'd try the plug wire thing, found one had come off the coil pack, snapped it on, car's running fine (but still have the Service light on!)!

 

[FE 065]

Re: Exhaust noise & smell & bad vibration

Whew! BTW Which car in your avatar is yours, the silver one or the red one?

 

[99 R/T 10]

Re: Exhaust noise & smell & bad vibration

Great to hear John. It always good to have a simple fix. Go get that code cleared at Autozone.

 

[slaughterj]

Re: Exhaust noise & smell & bad vibration

Whew! BTW Which car in your avatar is yours, the silver one or the red one?

All those cars are mine! BWHAHAHA...er, actually the silver one is mine, the red one is Gerald's DLM beast and the next red one beside it is one of Chuck's

 

[slaughterj]

Re: Exhaust noise & smell & bad vibration

Great to hear John. It always good to have a simple fix. Go get that code cleared at Autozone.

Autozone can clear the code?

 

[99 R/T 10]

Re: Exhaust noise & smell & bad vibration

They did for me a while back. All they can say is no. Gives you a reason to buy one for yourself if that is the case.

 

[slaughterj]

Re: Exhaust noise & smell & bad vibration

They did for me a while back. All they can say is no. Gives you a reason to buy one for yourself if that is the case.

Reason to buy what?

 

[Ulysses]

Re: Exhaust noise & smell & bad vibration

An OBDII scanner.

 

[slaughterj]

Re: Exhaust noise & smell & bad vibration

An OBDII scanner.

Like the Viper Techs have, aren't they thousands of $??

BTW, went out to lunch, and the code had cleared by itself by then

For reference, when I noticed the problem, it was just as I was pulling into someone's house. I drove the car home over half-hour away, no code. Tried the car 2 days later, for the drive around the block, and the engine light came on. Found and fixed the problem, took the car for a drive afterward, stopped for gas, and turned it off back at home. Code still on this morning, but off upon start at lunch. Thus, it took a while for a code to be thrown, and a while (4th time on after fix) to reset itself.

 

[Ulysses]

Re: Exhaust noise & smell & bad vibration

The one the Viper Techs have is a DRB programmer/reader. They can change parameters and is very pricey.

The OBDII scanners just scan and clear codes and can be had for $40 to $400 depending on the features you want.

Auto Xray These guys sell one of the more popular models. AutoZone carries them too.

Some codes will clear themselves after a few on/off cycles.

 

[slaughterj]

Re: Exhaust noise & smell & bad vibration

Gotcha, thanks for the info.

 

[Dixter]

Re: Exhaust noise & smell & bad vibration

You can buy them from Roe Racing....

 

[slaughterj]

Re: Exhaust noise & smell & bad vibration

You can buy them from Roe Racing....

Even better, and for $55!