lowered99gt

My car is off the road now, blown up t45 transmission, but While I was underneath I noticed a 1/4" gap between where the bottom of the manifold pipe goes into the X-Pipe on one side. My car seemed to be losing power progressively before the transmission failed. I've always noticed a leak but couldnt pinpoint it until now. It makes no noise at idle, the only time I hear the leak is under load, a fairly loud tick...tick...tick, and it gets louder the higher the RPM (only while under load), until At WOT it sounds like a lot of the exhaust is coming out there.

Can a leak like this cause performance problems? I don't have any o2 codes or anything.

SikSide00GT

Im not a mechanic but im pretty sure you will lose out on your stang's performance. I had a mechanic install my racing clutch and when he put my h-pipe back on hey screwed up my flanges and causeda major exhaust leak that was located between my headers and h-pipe, and when he started my car it sounded like an old beat up 52 chevy. Sounded horrible it puttered and idled all weird.