Header leak?

[abfrs]

Recently i’ve hit a rock that stood about 1.5 inches tall and the side of a palm and my car has about 1 inch clearance. I wanna say i was going about 30 when i hit it, next thing you know i get a loud flapping sound coming from the engine bay.

My first thoughts were a leak in headers, blown gaskets, blown cat. When the car idles it’s very noticeable when standing near the engine bay.

When driving it’s super loud in the front end, i also noticed there’s hardly airflow through the exhaust.

When parked with the car on it doesn’t leak oil, no check engine.

I was able to look under the car and noticed a crack in my oem header (was able to see this fluffy like insulation from inside the headers as if this rock really did some damage) in the passenger side where the rock hit but in the video i shared the flapping sound comes from the driver side so that’s where i’m lost.

I’m not sure what to think it is at this point.



https://youtube.com/shorts/JsXuJ7yMM3Q?feature=share

[soundman98]

yup, sounds like it. time to get the underbody panels removed and check the exhaust system

it could've been worse. know at least a few people that hit semi truck tires in the same situation.. that ends up being a front core support, radiator, and if it got sucked under, even things like the drive shaft...

[abfrs]

Originally Posted by soundman98

yup, sounds like it. time to get the underbody panels removed and check the exhaust system

it could've been worse. know at least a few people that hit semi truck tires in the same situation.. that ends up being a front core support, radiator, and if it got sucked under, even things like the drive shaft...

I checked the front pipe down to the exhaust tip, looks untouched.

I wanna be certain it’s a leak in the headers only, do you think it’d be fine driving just babying it around or should i avoid driving it?

[soundman98]

that's a better call to make while looking it over than making assumptions from thousands of miles away

[humfrz]

Originally Posted by abfrs

I checked the front pipe down to the exhaust tip, looks untouched.

I wanna be certain it’s a leak in the headers only, do you think it’d be fine driving just babying it around or should i avoid driving it?

Welcome to the group -

Yep, as soundman98 mentioned, I'd suggest you take your car into a shop and have them figure it out. It would be OK to drive it to a shop, but I wouldn't drive it much further.