my passenger exhaust is glowing red. When I start my 95 ta up the temps on the manifold are doubled compared to the driver side, after like 5 mins the passenger side manifold is 140 to 75 on driver side. Then when i drive around the block it goes up 640 on the back of the manifold 513 in the middle and 486 to the front.There are no mods to my car. the only thing is the cat has been removed from the first place i took it and it is still doing the same thing on the manifold on passenger side. Went to another garage and they are saying its a cracked head ? My only thing it runs great at idle and even driving down the road its also running way to rich you can smell it from the exhaust. The garage switched injectors from passenger to driver side and it didnt follow. I did the code search and they are injector circuit board and the egr. The garage did the noid thing and that passed they also checked my plugs and did a compression test and they said they were good. Any help would be much appreciated thanks

 

Have you done anything to the car prior to this problem? Any valve adjustment or anything? If the exhaust valve is opening during combustion this will cause excess heat on the valve, heads, manifolds, etc...

There are a couple of ways to check for a cracked head - compression test, and check the oil for water (it will look like chocolate milk.)

 

the garage did a compression check and they said it was good as for as the oil it smelled like fuel so they changed it, so i wouldnt ruin the motor, there was no water in the oil. And the motor is stock. When i got the car they said they replaced the waterpump and radiator, and then i had to replace the opti and gave it a tune up.

 

The timing is retarded causing the fuel to burn on the way out the exhaust port.
Check your optispark harness. A failure here will default it to zero degrees of spark advance and cause your problem.

 

would that cause it to be on one side and not the other, it is a new opti harness, how would I go about checking that

 

It's possible. Check for a high res failure trouble code if you have datamasters or something. I've seen this problem twice, both times it was retarded timing.

Running rich will not usually cause this problem. A rich mixture burns cooler than lean mixture. Incorrect ignition (or even valve) timing will cause the mixture to burn when the exhaust valve is open, turning it all to heat not power.

 

Mike I am thinking his timing is retarded also but on the LT1 how would it get that way? There is no timing procedure for this motor.

 

Check for a distributor trouble code. Unplug the opti harness and check all the connectors and see if they look ok, etc.

 

If it has the low res pulse, it has adequate info to time the spark. Loss of high res just reduces the accuracy slightly, increasing spark scatter, but not enough to throw the timing off that much. If it didn't have the low res pulse, it wouldn't be running.

 

Oddly enough my buddies car was doing this, I scanned it with datamasters and it was stuck at zero degrees timing. Replaced his old torn up opti harness with mine and it returned to normal. The wires were frayed at the opti end and were probably touching each other.
Strange that only one side is doing it though. Maybe do a cylinder leakdown test or ensure the rockers aren't tightened too far down holding a valve open or something.

The reason the car 'smells rich' is probably because you're removed the cat. My car's exhaust had a horrible raw fuel smell when I had the cat off even though the wideband showed it as running at 14.7:1 in closed loop with no problems. Simply put your nose can't reliably tell.

 

well i pulled my opti harness and looked down the harness socket on the opti and noticed it looks like there are two bent prongs. Now comes the fun part trying to straighten them. when i get this done hopefully it will cure the issue that i have. thanks for the reply much appreciated.

 

Some easy stuff you can check:

Got any massive vacuum leaks like the hose going to the pass side of the throttle body? Make sure there isn't a big crack in it or something. Make sure your intake manifold bolts aren't all loose. Make sure your oxygen sensor wires aren't all burned up.

 

Good call on a vacuum leak- I came in here to post that the overheated side was running lean- that might be a cause- probably why the garage switched the injectors side to side, to see if they were clogged or hanging up.

Get some carb cleaner or other solvent, and spray around the manifold, fittings, etc- if you have a leak, it will draw the combustible mixture in, and rev a little.

 

would a blown head gasket cause it to do this. Even though i dont have any signs of a blown head gasket? i fixed the prongs in the opti and its still running the same as before. I sprayed all the vacuum lines on both sides and nothing seems to be leaking no change in the rpm's. I'm almost tempted to change the opti and get a head gasket kit,and get the heads checked i just hate that i'm going to be spending all this money. does anyone have any other ideas. I really dont want to drive it for a long period of time to go and get it tested with the fuel getting in my oil, dont really want to tear up my motor thanks again

 

Intake gasket leak?