Hey all,

I have this weird...smell coming from my car after a while of driving. It sorta smells like something is burning yet my engine temps never go above the quarter mark and my oil preasure guage seems to be reporting the proper readings.

It has a wierd smell to it...kinda like when your BBQ'ing with charcol and you just lit the BBQ. The smell of Charcoal heating up sorta fits the smell. I am thinking it might be a carbon buildup seeing how the previous owner drove the car like it was a 4 cyl and never really pushed the car hard.

Any advice or any idea what is making the smell. Exhaust system is brand new, new cat and muffler as well as pipes and headers however the smell was there before I added these components. Any advice would be greatly apreciated.

 

It could be oil leaking onto the exaust and burning off. Pretty common thing with an older motor, especially around the valve covers. The heat from the exaust ports turns the neoprine gaskets into powder after a while.

 

Yep, I have a pretty good leak at my rear main seal and it falls back onto my exhaust and burns up with a bad smell too. Look at the bottom of your cat; mine had a bunch of burnt oil all on it, so naturally I ripped it out haha.

 

Is there a gasket seal that I can get that will fix that problem?

 

Well, if it is an oil leak you need to find out where you're leaking first. Then you can fix it.

 

ok I will talk this one over with my mechanic as I am not sure when it comes to motors and such. I will take some pics of the bay and post them here as well.

Now that you mention that the smell is oil it reminded me of when the PCV Valve was stuffed and wasn't opening and my crankcase intimidator filter was spewing out black smoke. The smell only seems to start back up now when the car is warm which makes sense about an oil leak. I will attempt to track it tomorrow when I have light

 

Well I think I found out what the smell was. My car doesn't like having a cap on teh valve cover...so it spit it off.

Funny story about this..

A while back, the stock Mr Gasket gas cap was blown off the valve cover and landed on the headers...which inturn caused the oil cap to burst into flames. I went to crappy tire and replaced the cover with another snap in place cover thinking that it would be the end of it...HA!! .. to my surprise today when I went out and checked my oil to see how it looked and what not, the new oil cap was off and sitting in teh back of my engine bay and there was oil dropplets all over the place.

Well I cleaned it up and put the cap back on. I think it fell off while I was doing 120 down the highway. I will keep a closer eye on it.