how do you know if your exhuast studs are bad?? can you tell just by looking or is it something internal. they look fine to me, not broken or cracked or anything but i seem to have an exhaust leak from somewhere and i think it might be around there. anything to help me with this will be most appreciated. thanks and merry christmas!

 

If these go bad your car will be louder than most V-8's mine went bad and my car sounded bad ***. then I got into an accident and when my car was getting repaired in the shop the guy accidently fixed it for free. not sure how i felt about that but maybe mine broke just right, not sure but i actually got alot of compliments from people for it, people were like damm what kind of exhuast is on that it sounds nice. then I laughed feeling like an idiot and said broken. anyway if it's close to your engine and is very loud you've got the problem nailed.

 

it will sound like a really bad leak which is loud and even louder when stepin on the gas..

 

thank you guys for the help!!!! my car has 150k on it though, so do you think i should change them in the spring or should i just wait until they go. cause im not sure how old they are on there. and i dont wanna go through that so i might change them anyways. tell me what ya think if you look back on the post. thanks for your help!! ohh and i just got my pulley and FSTB for x mas, hehe.

 

My old '91 SE had bad studs, and it sounded horrible. really jagged and rough, and when you hit the gas hard it almost got hissy. however, my friend's '92 SE hit the same problem around 130k, and the VE sounded great with bad studs. I guess it's an inherently smoother motor, or something. You could definitely tell it was coming from right under the hood though. On cold mornings, sometimes a bit of white smoke came out of there as well as the tailpipe

 

get them fixed if they are broken, you can cause more damage by leaving them "just for the sound".

 

Like what? What can be damaged? I've had three people tell me three different things now. One says get em fixed, no specific reason. One says get em fixed when they get worse. One says don't worry about it.

So what happens if I don't get them fixed?

-Seth

 

Open the hood and take a look. If all 6 bolts are still attached to the front bank, you are good to go. If some are missing, you need them swapped.

For the rear set, you need to look carefully from the top maybe with a little extension mirror(ie.. like a dentist would use but longer) Or jack up the car and look from the bottom w/ a light(and mirror)