I have a 88 Camaro with the Throttle Body Injection. The exhaust system is about new and there is not leaks. For some reason I am getting some exhaust smell inside the car.
Could it be from the old cowl to hood gasket or the EGR pipes? Nobody could find leaks around the manifolds. There was no noise from a leak.
Any ideas?

 

Bad hatch seal, leaks around the tail lights

 

Fresh air vents are known not to close all the way on some cars.

 

I will try to find out if they are closed.

 

Check and possibly replace the hatch seal and put some strip caulk around the tail light screws under the plastic nuts. They can pull in gas smells.

Is the car new to you? Did someone cut a fuel pump access hole?

 

I have had the car for about 11 years.
I put an addition cowl to hood gasket on and drove it and that seemed to work.
I will continue to monitor it.

 

Glad you got it worked out. With the questionable fuel pump access modifications I have seen over the years I would not be surprised if that was a source of odor but if you have had the car 11 years you definitely would have noticed by now

 

Does anyone know what headers and y pipe will work on a 1986 camaro stock 305?

 

Sticky at the top of the forum
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/exha...aust-what.html

 

Are you sure you are not smelling blow by? the engine could have excessive blow by / maybe a plugged PCV causing smells to enter the cabin especially since the cowl seal kinda fixed it.

 

Finally joining this forum after all these years to get more involved! I have a 1988 Pontiac Firebird Formula with a similar issue--or so I think. It's got a 1989 Trans Am engine swapped in, and the smell has gotten so much stronger. It has a cat delete (been there since I bought it a couple years ago), and was thinking that might be part of the problem, but I am not familiar with blow by. Is there an easy way to check for that on a Firebird?

Mark

 

Easiest thing to do is to remove the oil fill cap and start the motor. If you have lots of pressure and what not you likely have blow by.



On my TBI S-10 I had what i thought was an exhaust leak but the whole system was replaced and inspected.


After some searching it turned out the passages IN the TBI unit were severely clogged.... Hardly any vacuum / sucking from the PCV valve and a bad injector led me to find the passages were completley clogged.. but unfortunately only removing the tbi was i able to fix it





My Formula had a cat delete and the smelll was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO stink / i smelled like fumes after even a short drive.. .till i added the cat back.

No real loss in power and what not. You might want to add the cat back

 

This means you most likely do have an exhaust leak in engine compartment.

 

Interesting. I fell down the rabbit hole of what type of Catalytic converter to get--any suggestions? I am not in California, but I see there are super strict Cali grade, and regular. Being that I am specifically trying to combat the smell which is too much at this point, is it worth while putting one of those Cali cats on it? It's basically a beach cruiser car at this point, I'm not racing it, so performance isn't key. Mostly want to be able to ride with the t-tops open and not live in fumes lol