The car in question is my 05 Evo 8. It currently makes 342whp. and 280 torque.


So I have a leak, and I think I have pinpointed the exact location, somewhere close to the bottom studs near the middle or either where the turbo bolts to the manifold. My manifold is the stock one, and as far as I know from a receipt I found in the glove box when I bought it the previous owner might have gotten a porting done by Buschur.


1) Maybe some of you have, but I have never heard of a stock manifold cracking, especially only making about 340hp. I always heard those are hands down the strongest ones.

2) Will a port job compromise the integrity of an oem cast manifold? How much do they typically carve out around where the flange is?


P.S. When I tightened the manifold back on, I started from the center and worked my way out.

Thanks for reading.

 

You could also pressurize your exhaust outlet or tailpipe just like you would do a boost leak test on the intake side. This will let you 100% confirm the location before you tear it down and without burning yourself.

 

That's a good idea, I've never tried to do an exhaust leak test, but have boost leak tested before and it held great. Only after a long time did it very slowly leak down and I held my ear up to the open oil filler hole and could hear air and gurgling sounds coming from the inside. I hope that's normal lol. Blowby?


Anyways, how would doing an exhaust leak test benefit me now? I already know EXACTLY where it is leaking from...I just don't know why yet. I'm taking everything back off on my next 2 days off work to take a closer look and check everything with a straight edge.

 

Any residue on the gasket you removed?

 

Well it's either been on there for 110k miles, or it was changed whenever the previous owner did a port job, but either way it was a little nasty all over. We tried to see if we could tell if the leak was on the manifold side of the gasket or on the head side...but couldn't really tell.

 

Maybe the leak is where the runners meet the flange? Any hairline cracks around there? I cracked a hard fuel line and a hard oil return line before due to engine vibrations.

 

I will certainly find out next week if there are any cracks. Mainly what I was wondering was if anyone could share stories if they had heard of a cracked stock manifold on stock turbo, personally I haven't. Didn't have much luck searching.

 

^ Can't really think about any examples unless the porting job is botched and the flange is not even anymore and does not seal?

 

I found a receipt in the glove box when I bought it (among others) that showed the manifold being sent off to Buschur by the previous owner of the car. I would ASSume that if it's Buschur, it's quality work.

Everything was fine up until about a month ago, out of the blue, exhaust leak...bam! This leads me to believe a crack developed. I'll post pics when I find out the verdict.

 

Oh boy. I have a problem.

I untightened and retightened all the studs and cranked it up one last time before I was going to remove the turbo and manifold, and when I was looking at the engine I noticed a fluid bubbling out from the top left of the manifold where the manifold meets the head. So now there is that, and on the right side bottom is the exhaust leak. SOMETHING has happened to cause this to all of a sudden start springing leaks.

Has anyone ever seen the top of a manifold bubble fluid out?

 

Hey man found this thread on something familiar if not the same I hope its ok to cross thread:

http://www.socalevo.net/threads/2239...-What-happened

His fix was to replace the exhaust manifold stud because it was loose.

 

Yeah I saw that too...and every time I get ready to work on my car it snows. lol


So what started as as exhaust leak, has now turned into an exhaust leak, a fluid bubbling situation, and a broken bolt(not the 3 studs that fasten the turbo to the manifold, but that top left bolt).

 

I had high hopes my initial problem would just be a loose bolt/stud somewhere.

 

Have you fixed it ?

 

I'm in eastern NC and every time I try to work on it it snows lol