turbos & engine fires... I wish I didn't know about this

[Accordtheory]

You guessed it, today my car decided to catch on fire. It was tight. Everyone should be able to experience something this cool, especially when it happens to a car you have put such an insane amount of work into. My radiator or something was leaking coolant and my car overheated. I added coolant and water and then didn't tighten the cap, trying to minimize leakage due to pressure build up. I then drove about 45 minutes on the freeway, and after seeing that my car wasn't starting to heat, I smoked a couple people, embarrassed a 1.8T, and came to the stop by my house. As I was turning away from the stop, a large cloud of coolant smoke came out from under my hood. I continued to roll for about 2 blocks before I started to smell something far too acrid to be just coolant. By now, people were starting to look and clouds of black grey smoke were starting to pour out from the sides of my hood, and my engine was barely running. It died as I turned on the street to my house, and then the hood began to blister and swell up, a bulge of about 2 inches. I hit the e brake, hopped my ass out of the car and popped the hood, slightly burning my hand. I couldn't even see my fucking engine, all I saw was orange flames. I then dropped the hood, ran back into the car, grabbed the gallon of water that I bought in case my car continued to overheat, and dunked my whole engine. My hood was still on fire, so I dropped it, got my other gallon, and dunked it too. One of my neighbors was standing on his lawn with his mouth hanging open as I did all this shit with a quickness. His punk ass went inside when I started pushing the car down the street to my house. Damn was I ever glad I had that water sitting there on the passenger seat...although I do have a fire extinguisher in the back anyway. Here are the morals of this story:
1) ALWAYS carry a fire extinguisher
2) Coolant is flammable!!
3) Don't leave the radiator cap loose if you have a hot turbo header
4) Turbos add a lot of heat. If you can't protect EVERYTHING from the heat, get it out of the engine bay, which is what I am going to do now (evo style hood scoop) Also, it really helps if you don't have such a huge header like me, and also stainless steel doesn't conduct as much heat.
Basically my theory on how this happened is that the coolant spilled onto the hot manifold, caught on fire, and then set everything else on fire, because after driving fast with the A/C on for 45 minutes, everything was very hot already. The A/C turns on the cooling fans and they push air right across the manifold and turbo and then blow it on all the shit that caught on fire. I am going to need new wiring for the distributor, new plug wires, a bunch of new hoses and other wires, new clutch and speedo cables, a new hood, a new radiator, etc etc. Even my emissions control box is all melted, and all kinds of shit on the firewall (how appropriate) is all fucked up. I'm not even stressing though, I am going to buy sean's ecm conversion, put on a large quantity of new performance parts, and be flossin an evo style hoodscoop, all fairly soon. I just put in the walbro pump, and I modified an AEBS aftermarket type r manifold to fit. Alright you guys, peace, and keep the sleepers out on the streets

[shepherd79]

well, that was plain stupid. you knew about your overheating problem and you still prossed to race people. if it was my car i would be rolling home at slow speed just so i couldn't overheat.

[Justin86]

OMG I never knew coolant was flamable?????????
thats sucks big time. :sadwave:

[Vanilla Sky]

dumbass

[Accordtheory]

Sheperd 79 and Vanilla Sky, my shit didn't catch on fire because I was racing, it wasn't overheated at all when it caught on fire. It caught fire coasting on a residential street. I heard sean's shit had a small flameage problem too, because of some other stupid little problem like mine, and we both have way better setups than either of you. Keep talking shit and you'll lose the respect of people like us who actually build legit cars

[AQcz]

Damn, that shits wack...

Good you had water in the car at least. I dunno anybody that rolls around with two gallons, but I guess that was your lucky day

[shepherd79]

Sheperd 79 and Vanilla Sky, my shit didn't catch on fire because I was racing, it wasn't overheated at all when it caught on fire. It caught fire coasting on a residential street. I heard sean's shit had a small flameage problem too, because of some other stupid little problem like mine, and we both have way better setups than either of you. Keep talking shit and you'll lose the respect of people like us who actually build legit cars

Accordtheory, i don't care about your car. i don't care if your car is faster than mine because i don't race. I use my car as commuter car. i am just saying it was your damn fault it cought on fire.

PS. as of right now, I lost all the respect for you as member of this board.

[k-roy]

Keep talking shit and you'll lose the respect of people like us who actually build legit cars
I thought legit cars did not catch fire, i guess I was wrong.

All I gotta say is you got :owned:

[RobbyKlotz]

Jegs sells some high temperature heat wrap. Wouldnt this help combat the problem with heat from the header and turbo?

[joker2]

Damn, that's a killa but like you said, no need to worry about it.... Just rebuild that thing and get it back on the road... And another thing, I don't understand why people are sweating you so much just because the joint caught fire, damn, it happens to the best of them.... Get over it, rebuild and keep on going.... :rolleyes:

[k-roy]

Jegs sells some high temperature heat wrap. Wouldnt this help combat the problem with heat from the header and turbo?
That will do little to help his problem. I bet he has a stock cooling system without proper venting throught he hood and the fenders.

Good luck on the rebuild, and pray your pistons are not toasted.

[accordlxi2.0]

i doubt it's a honda not a ford . . . . . . man i'm feel sorry do to tha fact that this happend to ya . . . . . . .

[AccordEpicenter]

overheating an engine is one of the wost things you can do... up there with running it low (or out) of oil... hahah i saw that at the track the other day, this punk ass kid had a boosted dodge avenger there and he left the line and then boost spiked and overrevved and then a huge cloud of smoky steam came out of his hood... very ugly. Fortunatley for him he just blew a radiator hose.

[A20A1]

It overheated and then you raced before you fixed the cooling problem(s).
I think thats what people were getting at.

Anyways I messed around with a hood once, added all sorts of vents and my hood scoop.

[Mike's89AccordLX]

Damn that's sucks to hear, but yeah pushing your cars limits when it has a known problem is a huge mistake which you have to deal with now. And just b/c you have a turbo doesn't mean you can think you're better than everyone else that doesn't. I'm sorry I have a N/A motor and I'm happy with it and I beat many people on the streets with it. I'm Mechanic student at my college here and I just hope you didn't crack a head or warp it b/c you overheated your motor. Overheating is possibly the worst thing that could be done to a motor (I suppose catching fire is just as bad though ;) )

This is my perspective on cars and their owners. It doesn't matter what you have in your car, it matters on how the car is taken car of and maintained. I don't give respect to anyone that doesn't do their own stuff. Example: Why should I have respect for someone that just has a bunch of cash or if their parents do? Or why should I have respect for someone who pays someone else to mod their car? I've done everything to my car myself and that's the way it's going to stay. I'm not talking trash to anyone in particular this is just my opinion about cars and the owners.

-mike

[86LXi|JustONE]

LOL my car did the same thing....BUT I STOPPED AND LET IT REST NOT RACE IT DUMBASS...LOL you get no sympathy...

[DanLXI88]

Sheperd 79 and Vanilla Sky, my shit didn't catch on fire because I was racing, it wasn't overheated at all when it caught on fire. It caught fire coasting on a residential street. I heard sean's shit had a small flameage problem too, because of some other stupid little problem like mine, and we both have way better setups than either of you. Keep talking shit and you'll lose the respect of people like us who actually build legit cars
Your talkin alot of shit can you back it up with some pics ? If YOU spent so much time and work on your car you would KNOW any loss of coolant is dangerous and adding water instead of coolant is not the best idea either and you would know the consequences for this lack of judgment. Like Shep said you should have limped it home man your mistake was driving 45 mins on the freeway when you knew you were leaking or had lost coolant that I’m sure did not help and shows ignorance. Sorry to hear about the loss though better luck next time.

[truetune]

if it still runs it's a okay. if not then fix and make better. hey the dude got a kill so his day wasn't a total crapfest.

[A20A1]

Can you people refrain for calling him dumbass... jee

[Mike's89AccordLX]

Yeah lets try and be mature guys. I agree that it probably wasn't the smartest thing to do but hey, you can't turn back time. And that was probably his only way to get home and he might have thought it was ok since it had coolant and water in it then. There's no reason to start arguements, that includes everyone. Stuff was said and well it could be edited or apologised for but you can't turn back time, but you can try and fix it.

-Mike

[Sean]

hmm i had a fuel line rupture and that cuase some serious problems for me. Nice big underhood fire. fortunately for me it didnt blister the paint and was quickly exstinguished by a halon system. always keep a halon system on a r&d vehicle.

[bobafett]

thats shitty about the fire, hopefully the car will be bigger and better when it hits the streets again. ;)

[Robs89LXi]

Hey, may not have been the smartest move to keep driving hard after it overheated, but you don't stomp on a guy after he's been through such a devastating loss, especially a board brother. Take care of our own.

[Low Tek]

true that

[Sean]

thats shitty about the fire, hopefully the car will be bigger and better when it hits the streets again. ;)


dont you guys just wish you knew WTF i was working on hehehehehehehehehehehehe :pc:

[A20A1]

no... hehehe

but pics are nice. :D

[Robs89LXi]

Okay, I'll bite.... what are you working on?

[MrGlicko]

When i had a coolant leak in my $500 pos uninsured unregistered hatch i pulled over and parked it as soon as i noticed. Towed it home the next day and fixed the problem.

I can't imagine spending the time, money and effort to build a turbo motor and then driving the piss out of it when you know theres a problem. Im gonna go out on a limb here and say that you didnt install or work to pay for that turbo or you have insane amounts of money and ignorance is bliss, either way your handling of this situation certainly limits your bragging rights as an engine builder.

There is such a thing as a coolant overflow tank, it might have been a better idea to remove the cap there rather than the rad cap. Im not sure what coolant you are using but most are flammable in the 700*F range. Invest in some gauges. And yea, turbos are hot, hence the reason for intercoolers and upgraded rads, a hoodscoop alone would not have saved this poor abused machine, but it looks so cool huh?!

On that note, i know absolutely nothing about cars and am completely talking out of my ass.

[k-roy]

On that note, i know absolutely nothing about cars and am completely talking out of my ass.
Wow me too. Nice to meet ya!

[Accordtheory]

Anyone who attacks me for what happened with my car is a fucking moron. How many times do I have to say that me driving the car hard was not what caused it to catch on fire? The car wasn't even hot when it happened, and it happened when I was going like 20 mph. Coolant hitting my header caused it, and this could have happened whenever. And to those who said I am either rich or don't know shit about cars, you're also way, way off. I'd like to see you engineer and build a complete turbosystem from scratch, and then drive the car around for a year pushing it every day. I built and payed for the entire thing myself. I built everything, including the fucking turbo header myself. Sean has seen my pics. I take extremely good care of my car, just like anyone who puts this much effort into something. The damage is all superficial, and I could have had the car running the next day if I wanted to. However, instead I chose to make the best of the annoying situation and do some upgrades, although I can't really afford to. Yesterday I basically stripped my engine bay, taking the engine down to the shortblock, and today I spent about 4 hours port matching my cylinder head to the larger ports on my new AEBS type r manifold. I am going to fabricate a new header out of stainless, and install Sean's ecm setup very soon. Anyone who talks shit, you think I give a fuck about your respect? I don't care about respect from people who drive stock cars and then talk shit about my modified car. Sheperd 79, keep your negative attitude to yourself. No one wants to hear it. And when this shit is done, I will post pics, to inspire those who are true to the hobby and also, to keep the posers in check.

[Elijah]

Sorry to here that sucks. The funny thing is I had a under hood fire a couple days ago.
I went to a full serve gas station and got the kid to put oil in. And the dumbass spilt it all over. Then he thought it was funny till he saw a 3 foot flame. The onwer of the store came out with a fire extinguisher and sprayed my hole engine bay. Then he said I dont have to pay for the oil. This was on one of the new sho's.

[MrGlicko]

well then i apologise for those assumptions. But i still say you should have brought her home as soon as you noticed, instead of cruising around with 2 bottles of water taking on 1.8T's. Nice job on that kill though, they are fast. Did you find out where that leak was? or did the coolant reach the header because you didnt tighten the rad cap?
Just so i get it right,
So you were aware of a problem, you then removed the vacuum from the cooling system then drove it hard anyways,
the coolant expanded, and stays expanded because it doesnt care wtf speed you were going or whether or not you believe it, it just knows its hot. It had to be, because It found its easiest way out and sprayed onto the header which was at least 700*F to ignite the coolant/water mixture. Its coolant for gods sakes, anything can ignite with enough heat and this shit is designed to cool, so that header was hot. And i have a hard time believing something else didnt catch fire first. You then pour water on a fire in an engine bay, when you have a fire extinguisher rated for grease and oil in the trunk. Is that about right?

And theres no need for name calling, everyone knows who the moron is. Its getting hard to type all this out with my ass cheeks so ill stop right here.

[A20A1]

I have run into a few coolant problems over the years... and in my opinion the motor temp, the coolant temp... and the temp of the coolant hopefully flowing past the temp sensor are 3 different things. I wouldn't assume my engine was cool based on the reading of the temp sensor especially when running with a leaky/bad coolant system.

[shepherd79]

Anyone who attacks me for what happened with my car is a fucking moron. How many times do I have to say that me driving the car hard was not what caused it to catch on fire? The car wasn't even hot when it happened, and it happened when I was going like 20 mph. Coolant hitting my header caused it, and this could have happened whenever. And to those who said I am either rich or don't know shit about cars, you're also way, way off. I'd like to see you engineer and build a complete turbosystem from scratch, and then drive the car around for a year pushing it every day. I built and payed for the entire thing myself. I built everything, including the fucking turbo header myself. Sean has seen my pics. I take extremely good care of my car, just like anyone who puts this much effort into something. The damage is all superficial, and I could have had the car running the next day if I wanted to. However, instead I chose to make the best of the annoying situation and do some upgrades, although I can't really afford to. Yesterday I basically stripped my engine bay, taking the engine down to the shortblock, and today I spent about 4 hours port matching my cylinder head to the larger ports on my new AEBS type r manifold. I am going to fabricate a new header out of stainless, and install Sean's ecm setup very soon. Anyone who talks shit, you think I give a fuck about your respect? I don't care about respect from people who drive stock cars and then talk shit about my modified car. Sheperd 79, keep your negative attitude to yourself. No one wants to hear it. And when this shit is done, I will post pics, to inspire those who are true to the hobby and also, to keep the posers in check.

that kind of talk won't get you respect on this board, and if you don't respect people on this board you may as well find someother board where you can show off and scream at people.
this is your quote:

Everyone should be able to experience something this cool, especially when it happens to a car you have put such an insane amount of work into. My radiator or something was leaking coolant and my car overheated. I added coolant and water and then didn't tighten the cap, trying to minimize leakage due to pressure build up.
you knew about the problem. you didn't tighen the cap. so why are you trying to get some attention from us. it is all your fault and you don't want to accept it. no one is going to be pity about your ride because most of the board thinks that it is your fault you didn't tighten the cap. so what do you want from us?

[joker2]

Not trying to get into a non important debate over this but I think you're missing the whole point..... From my reading, Accordtheory wasn't trying to look for anyone to feel bad for him, he was just telling a story of what happened to his car when he pushed it too far.... Simple and plain.... But then the next post I read you're telling him he's "plain stupid" and then Vanilla Sky goes on to call him a "dumbass", now is all that called for??? Now I've been a member since the very beginning and I've never taking sides for anyone and I won't start now but after reading this thread you have to ask yourself if a lot of those comments were even necessary... :dunno:

[86LXItooFAST4me]

I just stoped in to make an appearance.

:bong:

[Wood9669]

well, assuming that you were actually dumb enough to race.. and not put the cap on.. and keep driving it several times after the car is overheating (you shouldnt drive the car at all if its over heating, pull over and either fix it or dont drive it.. especially if u say you have a lot of money dumped into it.)
your just plain stupid.

[speedpenguin]

dudes,
all the guy posted for was to give some suggestions on what not to do.
maybe they were a little off (i still don't see any mention of an intercooler, or cooling system upgrade) but i still don't see the need to jump all over him like that.
on the other hand, there's no need for him to talk trash right back. y'all need to go get laid or something and calm down. maybe leave some of that testosterone back where it belongs, huh?
just my 2 cents.