Blown exhaust gasket. From plugged catalytic converter?

My 2011 2.7 4 cyl has a blown gasket right where the "header" and exhaust meet right at the firewall before the converters. Is this more common with a bad gasket, or do I have a bad/plugged cat that is causing me to blow a gasket? I do have the check engine light on and the anti skid light on. Have not checked codes yet. But man does it sound terrible and 10x more gutless than normal.

 

On my 1st gen I had the same thing happen. Cats were OK but the gasket was blown. I had recently replaced the exhaust system and I think the gasket slipped out of place when the joint was tightened up and it eventually burned through....

 

If your converter was plugged enough to blow an exhaust gasket the truck would not run because of the back pressure.

 

Cool. I have a gasket ordered up for tomorrow. Weird that my gasket blew out. I am having bad luck with my truck.

 

The air leak has caused your timing to be off...lack of power. Codes. Don't run it much. You're also breathing in the exhaust while sitting in the truck.

 

A easy way to check your cats is to get a laser temp gun and measure the temp going in the cat and measure the temp going out that will tell you if the cat is working or not. It's been a while since I done it but I believe the temp on the rear of the cat needs to be higher then it going in. Not 100 percent sure but you can google it or YouTube it. It will show you. That's how I figured out which one of my cats was going out. Good luck.