found a couple problems...now i have a couple questions

[97GSTspyder]

i knew i had a boost leak somewhere....and today i was determined to find it....so, i took off the intake and decided to go ahead and soak the K&N in some hot soapy water. go back out to the car to hook up the leak tester, and blow about 17psi through the system....a loud hissing was heared so i knew for fact there was a leak somewhere....i start looking all over. i found a vac line disconnected. it's the red vac line for the EVAP purge solenoid, and it was blowing out some air. plugged that back in, and i noticed that the damn EGR solenoid electrical connector was disconnected. plugged that in. still heared a hiss, though...so i had a friend get under the car and he said it sounds like near the back of the motor. i told him to check the EGR valve. he stuck his hand near it and that was where all the air was coming from. so i get under there with a flashlight and i instantly seen a blown gasket. like parts of the gasket were sticking out. took off the EGR valve (what a bitch) and the gasket was ripped to shreds! never seen anything like that before. go to autozone, pick up a 99 cent Felpro EGR valve gasket, go back home. i cleaned the hell out of the EGR valve. put the new gasket on with a little black RTV sealant. then i somehow managed to get the EGR valve back on to the intake manifold (even a bigger bitch than taking it off, especially the vac lines). tightened the bolts down real good. blew some air through the system again and no more hiss! so i figured while i was at it, might as well check the plugs. took the plugs out and every one was carbon fouled. i believe it's probably because i'm running a little rich? anyway i cleaned them with a plug cleaner (nifty little device that you hook an air compressor to and it blasts it with sand). as for the K&N filter, i took it out of the tub and was shocked. i never seen so much shit come from a filter before. got everything back together and started her up. i haven't seen it hold idle this well in so damn long. car doesn't sound like it's misfiring anymore either so i went out to see if fixing my leak helped. it definitely did. throttle response seems to be better and it doesn't hesitate anymore. oh yeah, and my CEL is gone and hasn't come back!

now for the questions

having that vac line (as described above) disconnected. could that harm anything? i don't know much about the EVAP shit.

if the EGR valve isn't working, it shouldn't really harm anything, correct? from what i know it could cause a decrease in gas mileage and cause the car to run kind of shitty. just wanna make sure on this one. i still need to get a solenoid. not too sure how much longer this JB weld is gonna hold.

also, having all those parts that were not working...could that play a role in my exhaust? because my tailpipe was BLACK and the exhaust smelled like ass. seems to be better now.

thanks for any help

Steve

[TreeFrog]

running rich would cause the exhaust to do that, thats all i know

[96spyderman]

Everything I have read about the evoporative system and the EGR is to help out with emmissions and fuel economy... it sounds like the CEL was on because of your EGR not working correctly (blown gasket)....If you were running rich...my guess would be because of the boost leak...remember, if you are losing metered air the stoichiometric mix is thrown out of wack-rich-plug fouling..
Basically the engineers that design these systems know what they are doing...for the most part ... and have these systems there for a reason whether it is for emmissions or fuel economy...

On the side.... I didn't know you could soak the K&N filters.... I thought you were supposed to spray them with the cleaning fluid, let sit, the rinse from the inside out flushing all the crap out... I guess, if it works, it works....