My suggestion is to have the car running and play with the throttle body under the hood. This will help you identify if the noise is strictly from the engine or if it only happens under load, tranny noise or road noise. Since you mentioned the removal of your header, I wouldn't be surprised if there is an exhaust leak. I just had one fixed. I have an aftermarket S-pipe that has a flange for a standard gasket. The OEM mid-pipe has a flange for a donut gasket. The gap killed a new gasket in 3 weeks. The solution was my buddy filling in the gap with his MIG welder and grinding it flat with a die grinder. 1 new gasket and no more leak! ..... and now I have my torque back!

 

Without trying to insult your intelligence, have you considered the SRI as the whisping sound you're hearing? My CAI does the same thing, always in the same RPM range, which might explain why you hear it at upshifts.

 

I'll have to admit my ignorance of all things related to performance. What is a SRI? Short Ram Intake was my guess.

thanks

 

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Lots of Abbreviations

 

Its not the sri, that I am sure.
I have tried opening the hood and revving the throttle but the engine noise is to loud. And like you suggested I think I can only hear it when it has a load. The whisping is roughly the last 300 rpms of the power band before it shifts gears.
So if it is the exhaust gasket again should I double them up? I cant remember if I can loosen the studs and it will allow the manifold to come forward enough to change gaskets...I really dont want to have to take it off again.

 

Havent checked out the fuel thing yet. I never see any spots though under the car after I park it. I think I am just going to take it to Midas and let them test drive the thing. Its driving me nuts.
As far as the brake rotor dragging I have thought about that as well. I have spun the tire once before but dont know if its dragging or not. When I accelerate the steering wheel turns left and when I accelerate hard it really turns left. But I thought FWD vehicles did that.

 

FWD cars dont have to do that. Pulling left & right make me think you have a loose or shotsuspension bushing somewhere.

 

Would that be a cause of poor mpg?

 

That canreduce yourMPG, but theres a ton of other things that can also contribute together to give youbad MPG.

Torque-steer (pulling one way or the other) under WOT acceleration is sorta common withfront-wheel-drive, & depends on how uneven the pavement is. Sounds like yours is worse than it should be? Thats why I thought of bad bushings.