My exhaust got louder and my clutch feels like it's slipping.
 

Hello Zilvia I'm a new poster with limited experience in mechanics I bought my S13 out of pure love for the car scene. Recently I had my fuel pump, clutch, flywheel, headers gasket and tranny changed at once. After all this my car got louder for some reason. When I'm on a steady acceleration in 1st gear the car makes a popping noise like if it's struggling to push air out. It almost sounds like its backfiring. My clutch feels like it's slipping on idle my RPMs drop to almost 0, it doesn't idle over 1k. Also in neutral when moving the shift knob left and right it feels like it gets stuck moving it from the far left to the far right around the 5th/R gears. It also feels like I'm not pushing out the same amount of power I was before all this. Any ideas on what could be causing this? Also my exhaust is throwing a grayish smoke. Smells like burnt plastic.

run to the store and grab yourself some socks then stuff them in the exhaust as far as you can. it will muffle the exhaust down and wont be so loud anymore.

Can you not

If it happened that recently after having work done, maybe bring it back to the mechanic.. sounds like your clutch may not be bled properly..
As far as being louder, its probably because you have just installed your headers.. either that or you blew out your factory exhaust sock silencer

easiest way unless you want to use a 1/2" thickness Plate about the diameter of your exhaust then weld it inside your exhaust.

The only thing they did to the headers was change the gasket from it. It's the same headers from before. The sound when in steady acceleration is like a backfire but a lot more nasty sounding.

what do you mean, the clutch feels like its slipping at idle? like the car is in neutral but you still feel the car moving forward???

:picardfp:

It feels like the clutch is slipping (,) at idle my rpm drops to almost 0.

that makes no sense. answer my question

1: when you have the car in neutral, with the car on flat ground, and your foot OFF the brakes, does the car try to move forward?

if your idle is dropping to 0 and the engine stalls out, you need to fix this issue first. if you are getting a bunch of smoke out the tail pipe, and you had NO smoke before, you need to go back to the mechanic.

No it doesn't try and move forward it just stays stagnant.

lol this thread

s13silvia123 you get the troll of the year award please dont stop.

Lol sorry for trying to get help when I legit have no one else to ask. MY BAD

we just have a load of members who like to talk shit... ignore them

ok. so the clutch slipping has nothing to do with the rpm dropping to zero. separate issues.

now. when you put the car in gear, and let the clutch out, does the car move?

if so, when you give it gas, do the rpms shoot up without the car speeding up?

Yes and sorta when it's in gear the car moves forward when putting gas but it does feel like I've lost a lot of power. Also when I downshift the engine doesn't really get as loud as it used. Sorry if I sound like a total moron I just have littler experience with Manuel cars.

Frankly sounds like a couple different issues at the same time. Personally I wouldn't have driven it away from your mechanics shop, but you should get back their ASAP and get it straightened out if you actually paid someone for this work and have the papers to prove it.

It'll probably get you a lot further then Zilvians' speculation and flaming. Good luck

The bottom line is that you don't even have the automotive knowledge to accurately describe what's going on. Take the car back to the mechanic, give them a shot to make it right. After that, maybe another shop is in order. You've got a few totally different issues. I suspect that a shitty mechanic is the REAL issue...

Go watch some youtube videos on how to drive a manual transmission, and use what you learn to eliminate any parts of your question that describe you just not knowing what you're doing.

Might be that there's nothing wrong, from your description. It's possible to make a manual car do all those things, depending on how and what you do wrong.

Here's a video of how it sounds on steady idle, when I got the car it sure as hell didn't sound like this it's a lot more aggressive and louder at the end of the video is a example of how it would sound when I'm driving also if you could hear the pause after revs that's when the RPM's drop to almost 0 it doesn't stall btw.
https://youtu.be/O8b-QobURAc

What type of fuel pump did you purchase? Are you throwing a check engine light (yellow light with an engine sign)?

The OEM one no check engine light

Sounds like an exhaust leak to me.

The only vid I can compare it to.

First, there is most definitely an exhaust leak. Take it back and get that fixed.

Second, the easy way to determine if your clutch is going out is to put the car in 4th or 5th, rev it and drop the clutch from 4-5K; if it dies that's good, if it revs up and doesn't die, not so good.


EDIT:
Being that you got your clutch replaced, it shouldn't be doing anything different. HOWEVER, now that you have a new clutch, you engagement point is VERY likely different than it felt before the work was done. Have them adjust the engagement (It's here and in the FSM: #/f/showthread.php?t=273470) or get used to the new engagement point.

No idea on the smoke or smell, but maybe it is residual from the install; grease, left over plastic from sloppy work, or some rubber hose butted up against the headers thats burning?

Thank you all for your replies and helpful input, I'll keep you'll updated on what happens. I appreciate you all. 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽

There's not shit for adjustment.

I mean, you can tell the difference, but it will function properly at any point in the adjustment range, as I recall.

Alright took the car to a new shop to get a 2nd opinion on Monday, I was told it's the MAF sensor and my spark plug. Guy told me it would run about $600 just for the MAF sensor alone. Does this sound like it could be causing my issues?

if it was the maf it would be throwing a code that you could verify yourself. also if he says the plugs are bad, change them yourself