Yesterday while trying to start the FD after it was down for about a month (that's another subject), it flooded and refused to start. I noticed a small puddle of raw fuel, blackened by the carbon it apparently washed off the exhaust ports/mani sitting on the floor under the passenger side of the motor, and traced the source of the leak to the exhaust manifold gasket. There are no other external fuel leaks anywhere in the lines or plumbing (tested for that w/system pressurized & pump running). It's a single turbo setup, (Turblown welded manifold & BW turbo kit from PO) and the exhaust manifold gasket was installed new, and it didn't leak any exhaust gasses when it was last running a month ago.

Is it normal for fuel to leak past an otherwise good exhaust manifold gasket when an engine floods? If not, should I consider replacing the exhaust manifold gasket?

I suspect the gasket is fine as-is, and once the mess is cleaned up and the flooding problem fixed there should be no worries - true?

As for the flooding issue, I suspect either my injectors are leaking, OR the cold start enrichment parts of my tune (Link G4+ ECU) are just jacked up - this is the 1st time attempting to start the car with ambient temps as low as the upper 40's*F; could be that my tune is just WAY too rich there.

 

[QUOTE=Pete_89T2;12446499
Is it normal for fuel to leak past an otherwise good exhaust manifold gasket when an engine floods? If not, should I consider replacing the exhaust manifold gasket?[/QUOTE]

yep, ive had the same thing happen.

 

Yes. Flood a motor bad enough or spill gas on top of it and it will seep past the gasket.

 

Had 720cc primary stick open because I pinched the pintle cap on installation.

Ran kinda funny and raw gas stared running out the garage door...

 

Thanks guys, that's that's what I suspected but I've never flooded an engine so bad that it leaked fuel past the exhaust manifold gasket before. First time for everything I guess

Back to the flooding issue, to check to see if the injectors are leaking, I hooked up a battery charger and then ran my fuel pump constantly for about 20 minutes so the system would be pressurized at base pressure. Then after shutting off the fuel pump, I pulled the spark plugs to see if there was any fuel getting into the combustion chambers - plugs came out dry, and there was no signs of leaking fuel by the exhaust manifold gaskets this time. So I'm pretty sure the injectors are fine, and I have some tuning of the cold start enrichment to do to fix this.

 

i had this happen to me with a PFC, the air temp was about 33 and was dumping fuel like crazy but no exhaust leaks otherwise.....weirdest thing.