drivers side header glowing cherry red?

[BuickTV6]

I posted this in the general buick section to see what those guys would come up with. I'm also posting it here to see if us hotair guys can figure it out

Hey guys, heres something I noticed today on my car. Its currently stored cause of the winter months. I fired er up and let it run and idle for a good 15 minutes. Before I shut it down, I was under the hood checking a few things, and I noticed that the drivers side header was glowing cherry red. Not really the individual pipes, but moreso the collector. I was in a poorly lit environment, so this is probably why its the first time I noticed this. Since ive never actually seen this before, I wanted to know if this is normal, or does this mean that there is some kind of resitriction in the exhaust somewhere. Any insight would help. Thanks...

 

[irockwithdirt]

Search this forum..........I am positive I remember someone else in this forum having that exact problem. Can't remember what the answer was but know there was one. Good luck, Kevin

 

[49-blues]

I think you might be running lean or possibly a blockage in the catalitic converter.

 

[BuickTV6]

high egt's

I spoke to a few other guys an they were saying that I might be running too rich with might cause that? When it was idling, I did smell a lot of gas out of the exhaust... Can that happen in rich conditions? Also, the exhaust system is only about 3 years old and theres no cat. Crossover pipe and headers are original. Could that be an issue?

 

[Turbo Loyd]

Very high EGTs

I've seen the exhaust manifolds on my 86 glow twice.

Once when I changed the EGR valve and the gasket was leaking.

The second time when the ECM was messed up due to a faulty card edge plug on direct scan. That was before I heard about using a tooth pick under the plug to keep this very thing from happening.

Hope this helps

 

[cool 84]

At a high idle you can see them glow slightly if there's not much light. Retarded timing will really make them glow at idle. It would have to be running extremely lean to make it glow at a regular idle speed. Rich maybe could but it would have to be so rich that raw gas is being dumped into the exhaust and the igniting. Did it have a miss? What's your idle speed? You would be scared to see the headers under WOT at night time. It looks like a fire under the hood looking through the fenderwell.