Will exhaust header leak cause permanent engine damage?

[tomp]

Purchased some headers on sale from mossh2 and there is a bad leak on the passenger side collector in between the 4 tubes. Dring on highway today started suffering severe performance loss. Concerned it may cause permanent damage to my engine. No service lights came on yet, but I am sure the ECM is having a hard time getting correct info from O2 sensor as the sensor is also on the passenger side header.

I didn't think it would cause serious damage since it's down by the collector, but now I am not sure due to experiencing serious performance loss.

Moss no longer has headers to replace mine with and Hedman does not currently have any in stock with ceramic caoting to send me so I have to wait. Any thoughts?

[genob]

o2 sensor (wackyness) can eventually lead to cat converter failure... happened on our saturn vue.

we didn't know how long the o2 sensor was acting funny... it could of been years that lead to the failure...

just my 2 cents...