Broken bolt found in bildge--96 GTX

[bz1mcr]

My 96 GTX has not been hoolding high speed. one cylinder will stop firing for a while and then run OK for a few seconds. While looking for the cause I found a broken bolt in the bildge. It was just laying in the bottom of the boat. The bolt has a 13 mm head an 8 mm shank and the broken length is just over 25 mm from the bottom of the head. Where did that come from?

 

[bz1mcr]

I found where the bolt came from. It was in the angle bracket that holds the exhaust pipe to the front of the engine. Does anyone have experience with this? What can it hurt if I just run without it?