Exhaust Leak & Missing Oil?

[Clinical]

So I really don't beat on my car very often.
I always tell myself I beat on it enough to have fun but not enough for stuff to break as often as others do, well I'm starting to disbelieve that

I was having fun with a random WRX yesterday who stopped and talked to me.
We did a few runs. My first two were from around 4k in 3rd to around 100.

Third run I started in 3rd again around 4k - and then I noticed that under boost I was hearing a loud clicking type noise. Just idling/cruising I don't hear much of anything, although its faint I can hear a leak slightly. However under any throttle and I get the clickin sound.

I'm pretty sure I narrowed my search for the leak down to underneath the right side of my manifold, I can feel a ton of air under there.

Now problem #2
I DO have an oil leak and I just put in the rest of the oil I had yesterday. I only had enough to get it about -- far from the full mark. After returning home after the exhaust leak started I checked my oil and I was just above the minimum mark I'm going to just change my oil and hope for the best. It does seem I have some oil that has gotten sprayed onto my alternator.
My oil leak is right around the edge of my timing belt cover somewhere, so it IS kind of near the alternator but I'm still really surprised its getting any on it.


I did just fix an exhaust leak where my downpipe bolts were loose and needed a new gasket. My a/f had been reading off when that was leaking, it was always telling me I was running extremely lean. My a/f is still normal right now.


So anyway - what would be my best bet to fixing the exhaust leak on the manifold(assuming that's what it is) - would it just be to weld it? Do I have to take the manifold and stuff all off to do it? Sorry still a bit new at this, trying to figure out the smart way to do it.

Is there a reason I'm only hearing a LOT of clicking noise under throttle/especially when the turbo spools at all? I had a cracked manifold before on my mustang and it clicked kind of like this, except it did it even at idle too. This is almost louder when the turbo spools but quiet at idle.

And while I'm at it - is there a general rule of thumb for fixing an oil leak? Mine seems to be somewhere on the right side of my block around the edge or somewhere of the bottom of the top part of the timing belt cover near the cam gears.
Here's a picture of my motor with an arrow pointing to where I think the leak is.

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The red arrow is the supposed leak, the green arrow shows kind of where under the manifold I'm feeling a lot of air.

Thanks for any help all!

 

[GooeyGus]

There is a bolt on the manifold that will leak oil if not properly tightened/gasketed.

It's hard to say if this is your leak, since you said yours is a bit lower by the alt. It could drip down though...

A couple weeks ago I started my car and I blew a bit of blue smoke. I freaked out because I knew my engine was in good shape, and I was hoping I didn't mess anything up. The following day the same thing happened, except worse. That night I also noticed blue smoke coming out of my hood!!!!

It turns out one of the exhaust manifold bolts came loose and it was leaking oil into the manifold and burning when the car was started. Once the car was running the exhaust pressure blew the oil to the outside of the manifold where it burned and smoked out the engine bay.

I found that every bolt on my manifold was loose. Fixed it up and it's been fine ever since!

 

[LiquidX]

+1 on the manifold bolt. I had the same issue as well but it wasn't that bad. Idle the car and either have someone press the gas or just use your hand on the throttle cable and see if oil shoots out. Now would be a good time to get new manifold studs (hex head) and a MLS exhaust manifold gasket to help seal.

 

[Clinical]

thanks for this - I'll go check it out when it stops raining >.<