Car is a 2000 SE with 104K miles.

This past weekend, I noticed that I am having a hard time accelerating to proper speed, taking a long time from 0-30 even when I WOT, almost feel like I'm running 4 cylinders. Then when going uphill, i noticed that the car will downshift and lose power.

Also, when I start the car, the exhaust is louder than usual.

The only thing that happened before this was one of the screw clamps on an pipe near the cat coverter rusted off, so the pipe is sort of loose and will bang against the bottom of the car when I hit a pothole or something.

I cleaned the MAF as well but didn't alleviate the problem.

What can be causing this sluggish performance?

V4..

Exhaust louder than ususal.. hello, you probably have a significant exhaust leak, which will cause the car to be louder and lose power.

Any codes show up, SES light?

lol, my bad. i mean inline 4. brain fart.

but yea, i tried looking for the leak but i can't find the hole. I'll look again.

and no SES light yet, maybe a ghost code, i'll get a OBD2 reader and check it out this weekend.

I Just changed my spark plugs and it did alot for the car feeling sluggish. proper upkeep most people tend to shrug off such as changing tranny fluid n oil also affects response.

1 word : MAF

disagree

No doesn't sound like MAF, sounds like a leak somewhere. Have you recently added any mods or did anything to the car?

No mods or anything. I used some wire to tie up the loose exhaust to the body of the car. The only thing I can think of is that I may have tied it too tightly and some part of it may have snapped due to the pressure and being rusted to hell doesnt help either.

Don't think its the MAF either.

Could the slowness be due to a ignition coil issue?