Red Hot Manifold Please Help

[Spluffy]

Since becoming the new owner of a fantastic Chimaera 4.5 and joining the TVRCC I have had a few teething problems, but with the help of members fortunately I have overcome them.

NOW I THINK I HAVE A REAL BIG PROBLEM, AND I AM COMPLETELY DEVASTATED PLEASE HELP

The car started to miss on Sunday very slightly when cold, but soon came into full swing. Then my wife drove it yesterday without any reported faults.

I decided to run it to the office this morning, and found it a little "lumpy", but nothing that rang any alarm bells.

When leaving the office the car was missing terribly and showed no sign of recovering. I ran it about 2 mile, no smoke!, oil pressure fine!, Temp guage just starting to show a reading!, but no improvement.

It got considerably worse so I pulled into a side street to look under the bonnet. The exhaust manifold where it merges into one at the front was glowing bright red!

After letting it cool down I limped it the remaining mile home, and am now sat with my head in my hands. The dreams of the Le Mans (for which I posted my booking form this morning) are now looking hopeless.

Please help if you can.

[mongoose]

Can you be more specific about which part was glowing red.Was it on one side only?The headers do tend to show red in the dark anyway,if things are warmed up nicely.I'm promising nowt,but you may just have a misfire for another reason,and have discovered they glow red by accident.

[Spluffy]

Thanks for the response.

The manifold was glowing at the point where the 2 sides go into 1 ie on the single section right at the front behind the radiator.

Also the car felt like it was only on 2 or 3 cylinders. It was that bad.

[mongoose]

Sounds like your main cat is being superheated by unburnt fuel possibly?.The misfire could be something simple.I'd take it to a garage to find out,

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

Yep, to the garage..and I bet it's not as bad as you fear....

hopefully