What causes this?

3 Month old flex...

Is that broken off? Only thing I can think of is TOO much flex from perhaps wearing engine and transmission mounts and excessive heat? Just a guess...that's nasty .

It was cut off, but the weaving inside was burnt out. Inside is all red from the exhaust manifold to the cat

Crap flex. Where did you get the DP?

Decent flex won't do that.

Had exhaust shop in my city fab it up. I took it back because I had a exhaust leak. What about the redness?

What's your tune like? Any SES/DTC? No exhaust leaks or vacuum leaks? What color are your spark plugs?
(pic from random web find)

Stock tune. Had a evap code from charcoal plugging the purge valve. It's gone now no other dtc's. Plugs were also red with purple spots. Vacuum is 18in.hg at idle checked for leaks and found none. Only exhaust leak was this flex its been replaced.

Agree, it could be a bad quality bad flex. A good pipe should use stainless braided wire. Did it appear rusted?

It's also possible they hung the exhaust so that it exerted tension on the flex, causing it to fail. For the flex to work properly, the down pipe should be aligned with the cat-back exhaust.

I have no idea why the inside would be red. That's strange.

Nope no rust. I knew I had a exhaust leak, the way I found it is it being red in th leaking area. While they had the exhaust opened up I checked the cat it was in good shape not burned up but everything was red. I swapped both o2s last week and they were also red. Same color as my plugs. I do run outlaw 104 octane booster with 91 from time to time. I have been replacing and fixing all these parts Trying to figre out why my pcm is pulling timing. I don't want tear the riv up so I've been driving my l37. I was hoping this would get me going in the right direction to fixing it.

My next question was going to be "did you add anything to your fuel". You already answered that one!

I don't think the octane booster caused your pipe to fail, but I also think it's a waste of money. If want to know for sure the booster works, you'll need a scan tool that reads KR. Do a before/after test. Unfortunately, the stuff usually doesn't work. There are a few that do, but these will run you $20+ per bottle.

I was just about to ask if you've ever run Torco - notorious for turning plugs and pipes red... not sure what's in Outlaw but I wonder if it's similar.

Sounds like you definitely need a scanner.

FWIW I could never run my 3.4 pulley KR free until I ran 1.9 rockers. I recommend a switching to a 3.5 pulley until you sort it out. Some increase in airflow (more valve lift etc) is needed mechanically to run a 3.4 safely in my experience.

This is what its doing. ill be getting a snap-on scanner from a coworker this weekend

Spark timing is very interesting. Some scanners show advanced of TDC (top dead center) as negative value, which in your case is around -25º BTDC when you are not on the gas. That's normal. But when you're on it, it goes all the way to 0º and THEN TO +10º. This means the spark happens 10º ATDC, which is definately not normal. That's some serious timing retard. The normal range for our cars is from -10º under load to -40º at cruise, and everywhere in between. I have never seen positive values (ATDC) on my car, rarely ever see anything beyond -10º.

It never dropped this low before, this has been my daily commuter since nov of last year i've put 30k miles on it and even after my 3.4 swap i never had any type of problem that was not regular maintenance related. Recently this started happening. I have checked and swapped out everything but the computer so far.

Gave the cat a couple of hits with my palm i can def. hear something moving around sounds like a bunch of small pieces... Anyway to test at home to see if the cats clogged? Back when i had my evap code and times at wot i could def smell the cat heating up.

i tink a SS with a high iron content will turn red. depending on the quality of course. i dont see anything to worry about tho.

How is your fuel pressure/fuel filter?

Filter is new fuel pressure at idle is about 41psi and holds.

with the back side of my hand flat on the ground the cat heats it up pretty well after a 10minute drive. The resonator behind it did not have that amount of heat coming from it. Also upon start up it almost seem i have barely any exhaust coming out.

I am wondering if pressure and vibration gave your flex pipe it's death knell.

i appreciate all the help and insight you guys have been giving me. Today i unplugged my maf and took the riv for a ride. timing did drop below +10degrees but only for a second at the most under wot. Second i seem to have almost all my power back with no chugging or it pulling a excessive amount of timing. When the TC locked up my timing would retard 10 degrees at times, that is no longer the case. I cleaned the maf 2 weeks ago when i was having problems with the car it helped a little but not much. Replace maf? its throwing no codes when plugged in

If your MAFF sensor is bad, usually you'll see LTFT go to +16.4. When you unplug it, check this parameter. In the video, yours looked ok. Another way to know your sensor is working - check the MAFF parameter (in kHz).

At idle in park unplugged taken 20 minutes ago

My guess is if you unplugged the MAF and the car started behaving you probably need to replace the MAF. Or at least re-clean it. Might have to remove it to clean it right.

first time i cleaned it i removed it from the throttle body and used the sensor safe maf cleaner. I'll try cleaning again tomorrow