Ok, I got my engine rebuilt, after I bought it with a blow headgasket. I have to timing set, and all the vaccum hoses connected, but it has little power above 2k, hesitates, and when I pop the hood, the manifold is glowing red hot. Think it could be the cat? I'm not sure how it ran before the rebuild.... I towed it to my house. Any thoughts guys?

 

wow a glowing red hot manifold? That sounds wierd and very much like an occlusion. You DEFINATELY need to rectify that and I hope your EGTs have been below 800, but something is making me doubt that very much....

You have the 22r/re/ret or the 3vze/5vze? If one of the V6's and only one bank is redhot look at the manifold to collector area. If 4 banger, pull out the cat and have a looksee...

 

Could be a clogged exhaust system, take a wrench and tap your muffler and see if you can hear loose material in there... If you cat collapsed and clogged your muffler it could cause those problems... Just a thought though....

 

sounds like a melted/clogged cat

 

My bet would be on the cat. Cut that puppy off and take it to your favorite muffler shop. Magnaflow makes a fairly cheap, free flowing (supposedly) cat. Make sure you take the old cat in with you. Might be a good time to see if the muffler shop can fashion a new efficient crossover; one that doesn't force one bank to exhaust its gases upstream in to the other bank's exhaust flow. Seal off the old crossover flange and tadah! You have a set of poor boy headers and probably a few more ponies.

 

i doubt it's the cat. check your cam timing. if your exhaust cam is a tooth or 2 advanced then the fire explosion in the cylinder could be going into the manifold when the exhuast valves are opening (too soon). the only other thing that comes to mind with a glowing manifold is running lean but i don't think that's the case if all you did was the HG.

 

Bring it to a muffler shop and have them check the backpressure along the exhaust (before cat, after cat, before muffler and after muffler). This will eliminate the cat and muffler problem if there is one.

If not then you need to start checking the engine for assembly mistakes or things that are out of check.

 

I know you said this, but check that timing again. I had a 22re that was glowing and had similar symptoms and it was because the timing was off.

 

Ok, well I disconnected the exhaust right before the cat, and took it for a run down the road with aan open exhaust. It was VERY loud, but still had no power. I guess I'll pop open the valve cover and check the cam timing again. I'm thinking the mixture is off somehow, but I don't know how that is controlled on these things. I have an air/fuel meter that I can hook up and see how it's running. I've been plugging vaccum lines to try to eliminate the possibility of a bad vaccum leak, but I haven't corrected anything yet. The check engine light is not on, and the engine does not seem to be using any oil. The exhaust is normal color. Any other ideas? Thanks for the help guys. -Joe

 

Pull the vavle cover to verify the chain is at TDC, then make sure the dizzy is not off a tooth. Sound like a timing problem to me; when the dizzy is off a tooth it will get real hot real quick.

 

^ yeah, my bet is on retarded timing