During the
NJ ProSolo I noticed the exhaust sounded a bit weird (a bit truck like) and the throttle response felt a bit sluggish except in sport mode. I also kept getting the P2198 CEL for O2 sensor stuck rich in bank1. After the event, I dropped the car off with Lee at
Hybrid Motors to put in the primary O2 sensors I had already purchased anyway just in case those were bad but in doing so he noticed that I had developed a pretty bad exhaust leak around the header gaskets. This was more likely the cause of my CEL.
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| New exhaust gaskets - 5-24-2019 |
I reached out to
Soul Performance since they had provided me with the gaskets to use with their header and asked where I could buy new ones. John, at Soul Performance, immediately got back to me and offered to ship new gaskets to me asap at no cost. I asked that he double everything up in case we wanted to double stack the gaskets for a better seal and he did one better, he sent me 3 sets of gaskets including brand new OEM Porsche gaskets which he recommended I use instead. They did not give me any fuss and I had the gaskets two days later. This is superb customer service!
Today, I dropped the car off with Lee again and sure enough, when he pulled the header I was leaking pretty badly on the engine side gasket. If you look at the generic gasket in the picture above (the ones not in plastic wrap) it's just pretty flat whereas the OEM one has all sorts of ridges to line up perfectly with the head to get a proper seal. The new OEM gasket fixed the leak. There was also a bit of leak by the clamp that joins the exhaust to the mid-pipe. They also sealed that up and the car is now exhaust leak free. I could immediately hear the difference but more surprisingly, it just feels so peppy again. I don't know how much power I lost while I had those leaks but it was definitely noticeable. It was so noticeable that I had to check that I hadn't accidentally pressed the Sport button before driving off.
Looking forward to tomorrow. We'll be testing the new tires and Kay is at full power and sounds like she should again.
