Driving home in a "spirited" fashion last night and all of a sudden the exhaust goes from normal to very loud on the driver's side while under hard throttle and continues to do so. My car is a 98 Targa w/ 20k miles that I just got.

Sounds like its blowing from around the exhaust or headers. Also slightly down on power. No CEL or anything like that.

My mechanic is off to the races for the weekend so can't take me in until Monday. Obviously I'm going to park it until then but I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts on what it could be or has experienced anything similar, particularly on such a low mileage car.

Thanks,

Steve

BTW: How do I post a signature here?

 

More than likely the clamp that mates the cat to the muffler has come loose. Any chance of getting under her with a flashlight to have a look?

 

Definitely. Will do it tonight. Thanks for the advice.

Yes this is a great place...

 

i think you have to be a member to get a sig

 

Figured as much and just paid to join.

 

Found the problem. Pipe from catalyst has clean snapped at the weld as it enters the muffler on the drivers side. Anyone heard of anything like this? I'm assuming the fix is to remove and weld.

 

Thats a strange one. Yes, remove and reweld..

 

or to find a replacement... Is it the cat or the muffler? If the muffler, might be the time for rsrs...

 

+1

 

lol, this reminds me of that old joke about the penguin who took his car in for some work.

 

It is the muffler and its tempting to go to RSRs, but as much as I love modding cars, this one is staying stock other than getting it to Euro ride height. Plus my car has the Motorsound package so not sure how big a difference it will make. For me as a daily driver its perfect and I have another toy for the track and to "invest" in upgrading.

 

IMO, Euro ride and rsrs are how the cars should have been stock.

How about this one on ebay ..

Pete

 

If only our fine Gov't agreed!