So - this weekend's road-trip to Idaho kindof sucked.

A few months back I purchased the Aquamist S1 for the Z. Pump failed, and ended up getting another setup from Enginerunup with a ShurFlo 150psi motor. Installed last weekend - no problems or leaks to eb found.

Things were good until 11PM Wed nite on Hwy 93 outside of Vegas (read: BFE) on the way to Idaho.

GF was asleep, I'm cruising at a steady 95mph - decide to open it up just a little more when *WHOMP!* propane-blue flames come shooting through the vents in my hood. This, of course, is not a normal function of the car after 60k mi, so I scream, gf wakes up, sees flames, screams, we all scream. Pull over, pop the hood - whole engine is ablaze

Grabbed a sleeping bag, start beating out the flames and pouring water/soda on the car. Flames fizzle out. I **** myself.

Of course there's NO HELP within a light-year of where we're located, no flashlight, new moon... so I pull the fuse to the W/A injection pump and slowly head back to Vegas.

Fast forward to today after completing the drive back from Idaho (after shearing a rear strut bolt, catching the rear bumper on a driveway and tearing it off (now in market for a new rear bumper), hitting a rabbit and destroying the check-valve solenoid assembly for my APS ST, apparently losing the O2 sensor on my Innovative AF gauge) - I boost again coming back and suddenly see a spray of water (and assuming methanol) come through the vents and onto the windshield....

Pull over - no culprit to be found - no flames this time, however.

EASE it back to Phoenix, pull it into the garage - checking the SSV plenum - all the allen bolts were loose. ARGH! Seems the the W/A injection + boost was causing the W/A mix to spray out from under the plenum and all over the motor = flames and visible spray.

I'm an idiot - why the hell I didn't re-check those after the install is beyond me. Noone to blame but myself

Luckily - the damage is cosmetic, though the injector harness and the left-bank cam sensor are all mukked from the fire. The rear bumper I didn't like anyways...

*sigh*

So - my PSA for the day is: recheck your manifold bolts after install. I decided to rock loose manifold bolts for - oh - about 15k mi. Don't be like me.

 

OMG dude, glad your car didn't actually catch on fire! I was thinking holy S__T!! for a second thinking it was a gas fire.

man, holy crap that sucks. hope fixing everything back up goes better.

I'm going to make checking those SSV bolts a regular thing to check every so often


were you still running 80% methanol?

 

damn man, sounds like one hell of a trip, luckily nothing was seriously hurt, other than bumper. i was afraid with the title that the outcome was much worse.

 

Wow-cool of you to post though, may same somebody with an SSV. BTW you werent losing boost with the leak?

 

Well - the car was hissing loudly and detonation was becoming progressively louder and easier to attain; and per the boost gauge, wasn't pulling as strong of a vacuum at idle (~16 mmHg) - but I was so narrow-minded about it that I only checked rubber hoses, not the manifold itself.

I checked the car, gained about 1 - 1½ psi of boost now that things are situated correctly.

Was running about 75% methanol - going to experiment back to 50% now that there's no vaccum leak to see if I can scale back the detonation until I can set an appt. with DynoComp to kill some timing because these summer-blends are disaster on the car right now

 

Hey Joe,

Read your post..

GF was asleep, I'm cruising at a steady 95mph - decide to open it up just a little more when *WHOMP!* propane-blue flames come shooting through the vents in my hood. This, of course, is not a normal function of the car after 60k mi, so I scream, gf wakes up, sees flames, screams, we all scream. Pull over, pop the hood - whole engine is ablaze

Sound's messy, did you get your engine compartment cleaned up after that?
Did you get your shorts cleaned up after that?

All kinds of questions come to mind... Glad you and yours are safe.. Good post.

Cheers Amy -

 

Ouch dude, well I guess congrats that it was able to run still and you are both still in one piece. Engine fires are deadly...

At least it wasn't this bad:
http://www.putfile.com/media.php?n=SRgtiFIRE

 

Suck - though for a second there I had that played out in my mind. I now roll with a fire extinguisher in the back of the car.

 

You need a fire supression system not just an extinguisher. Those guys in the GTI had a little extinguisher too...lotta good that did them...

 

haha, for some reason, i want to see a word "ice cream" in there somewhere.

good thing you and yo gal are ok.

 

Hectic, glad the damage wasnt too bad.

 

geez that video makes me wanna keep 2 fire extinguishers in my car lol