Sudden lean condition

[Dave2g]

Whats up guys. Didn't think I'd have a question this fast but anyways. Just went out for a quick drive, car was running absolutely fine and couldn't avoid a decent sized pothole in the road due to snow everywhere. Suddenly the oil pressure gauge started jumping around (which didn't work before) and the wideband reads (---). I can tell the car is running lean at idle and through the rev range. At first I figured I just took out the wideband sensor, but upon closer inspection I found something even more interesting. The car has a side exit exhaust through the front bumper. The exhaust actually moved from the cutout, closer to the wheel well. Under the hood, you could see that the exhaust had shifted and cracked on the dipstick tube. (I've been having luck like this all week... just one in a million) Would this cause a lean condition if there is a crack in the exhaust? I feel as though the afr's might become a bit leaner but not to the extent where the wideband won't read it. If not, what are some other things I should look at and check?

 

[Dave2g]

This has got to be the culprit. Wideband has got to be going off the wire with such a leak and the oil pressure sender is right next to the exhaust. One of wires got knocked off causing the sender to go haywire. Going to go see if a local fabber can fix up the exhaust tomorrow morning.

 

[93AWDDSM]

bejesus that looks crazy...almost like my front subframe after hitting an ice bank

I just had a nasty multiple spot exhaust leaks and it made my car completely non drive-able because the o2 was having a hard time correcting it. I was leaking from head to manifold, manifold to turbo, TURBO ring where it holds cold/hot side together, o2 housing leak, down pipe leak.. oh yeah that made my car not able to even accelerate slowly in 1st..

 

[Dave2g]

bejesus that looks crazy...almost like my front subframe after hitting an ice bank

I just had a nasty multiple spot exhaust leaks and it made my car completely non drive-able because the o2 was having a hard time correcting it. I was leaking from head to manifold, manifold to turbo, TURBO ring where it holds cold/hot side together, o2 housing leak, down pipe leak.. oh yeah that made my car not able to even accelerate slowly in 1st..

Wow.... That's quite a few leaks you had going on there! So this was definetly the problem... The car was a different animal after I got the exhaust welded back up and put it on this morning. I had more cracks than that upon closer inspection, the waste gate was barely v banded down and the whole car was a mess. But fresh gaskets all around, wastegate reattached and the car idled perfectly and pulled with no boost creep.

But as luck would have it (and this is completely user error) when I put the exhaust back on I must've not have paid attention to the oil return line. It was touching my exhaust ever so gently and burned a whole through the braided line. So, car has to sit for a week until a new one from ebay arrives. I took the chance to buy a new oil pressure sender and a nice weighted, tall Nrg shift knob.

Gotta keep the spirits up somehow.

So if anyone reading this has a lean condition out of the blue, CHECK YOUR FU%KING EXHAUST

 

[93AWDDSM]

Glad to hear it's running normally again!