Will a cabin smell like fuel if a header is leaking?
 

My cabin started smelling like gas all of a sudden. A quick look in the engine bay with the hood popped, I can see clear liquid (presumably fuel) hitting the header.

Is it safe to assume that the header is cracked or loose? Could it be a stuck injector? Would fuel even be able to leak onto the header if it was a injector issue?

Thanks

If fuel was spraying on your header I would expect a large fire.

Questions:
1) Where on the header is the fluid that you suspect may be fuel?
2) Have you checked to verify it is actually fuel?
3) Have you checked to see where the fluid is coming from?

^ this.


If it is fuel, and you haven't had a fire, you should not drive (or even start) the car until you get it fixed.

I don't understand the leap in logic from "clear fluid leaking on header" to "header must be cracked"

Chances are, if something is leaking on your exhaust then that is the smell invading your passenger compartment as it's sucked up into the ventilation. Find the source.

You would HEAR a cracked exhaust long before you would smell it.

Thanks for responses. I've seen the liquid hit the header and it just turns into white vapor. Safe to assume it's not fuel then. But then again, the cabin is flooded with the smell of raw fuel.

I'm going to try and diagnose it before towing it to the shop. If I suspect that it's a stuck injector, would putting the key in and leaving it on accessory prime the injectors and make it leak? I would want to see if fuel leaks if I do that. No worries, I haven't touched the car since. I did drive it for about half a mile like a fool though. No fire or flames but I'm not going to drive it again.

My logic for the cracked header is that a bolt might've gone loose and unburnt fuel might have seeped through the engine where the flange of the header mates with the engine block. It could be totally possible that it was condensation too.

Sounds like it's not a header issue then. I 100% did see clear liquid hitting my header, though.

https://i.imgur.com/fAksb3w.jpg

Circled is where I saw fuel hit the header, but it's a bit further back towards the rear. It's like directly below where the screws on the header meet the engine block, which also led me to believe that a screw on the header was loose.

When my cabin has smelled like fuel, it is because I had been working on the fuel basket that sits in the tank, and had damaged the seal on the basket lockring. Have you worked on any part of your fuel tank or fuel system recently?

I'm sure it can't be fuel dripping down from the upper coolant hose. That almost never happens. ;)

the possibility of enough raw fuel being in the upper coolant hose to smell means that the entire engine block is cracked enough that all of the coolant has drained out, and a fuel rail is also misconnected and dumping straight into the cooling system.

Or more likely, the smell of coolant is being mistaken for fuel. Sorry. I was writing with a dash of salt. Fixed.

My first guess would be a leaky cam plate. I don't have a great sense of smell and could easily missmell (?!) one for the other.

A leaky injector would mean absolutely terrible gas mileage, a strong fuel smell in the exhaust, probably little power and I would guess some misfire codes (at least). You can always check the fuel rail pressure which is a standard PID. Should hit about 3 000 psi peak. But you'll need to drive the car for that, and it won't tell you if a port injector's bad.

A cracked PCV hose maybe?

Hi all, i found the problem. An injector was unseated and it was spewing fuel down onto the header. Beyond me how the car didn't go up in flames. I'm not sure what happened but it became unseated when I restarted my car due to my headunit not being responsive with Carplay, lol. As soon as I restarted my car, that's when the smell of fuel became apparent.

i think hot engine oil over a hot exhaust manifold is more likely to catch fire, only gasoline i think the header should be glowing hot like after Laps of full throttle with EGT over 1000 Celsius... but dripping gasoline on a normally hot header just probably causes it to evaporate quickly and smell

But that evaporation and the resulting gas off could reach a point where any single spark will result in a BOOM. Yes the fuel will not ignite from the heat of a header (sorry Hollywood but even a cigarette is not hot enough) but any other ignition source in the form of a spark things could go bad fast.