So what happends when you combine 18KM of heavy boosting on the track with a rushed car prep and the “it can’t happen to me” mentality?
For those of you who didn’t attend the lastest MTD, my engine bay engulfed in flames provided about 15 minutes of entertainment as it burned and then was towed off the track.
I hope this picture will serve as a reminder to any of you guys who do your own engine work, don’t cut corners you will get burned!
So needless to say the adoration stage of the relationship with this new setup is over… now its time to get rough and dirty with her!
More updates to follow as the rebuild gets underway.
PS Thanks very much to one of the TSC members for the quick response with the fire extinguisher!
The reason behind the fire? A poorly routed EVAC hose went soft and started to rest on the downpipe, I ignored the faint smells of burning from with in the cabin for about 3/4 of a lap… but when the paint on your hood starts to bubble… its hard to continue to ignore it.
I must say though, those 18KM were almost worth it… man was that fun!!!
You know what, I see WAY too many setups with those rubber hoses running to catch cans over tubular headers. This is a good reminder to reroute your setup or wrap it.
Sad to see that happen though. I hope its a minor fix. Did the hood take any fire damage?
yeah the hood paint was shit anyway on that car and he has another green hood.
i was in the car when this happened - i was watching the temps on the laptop… the temps got a little above 90C and I mentioned it to dustin so we were doing our cooldown lap… temps were at 94C and I watched it jump all of a sudden from 94C to 99C. about half way around the lap… a good 30 seconds later dustin noticed a burning smell… temps had come down to low 90’s again… when he mentioned the smell I noticed the temp jump to 99C again and the paint on the hood started to bubble and dustin lost his throttle input (cas wiring was shorted out by this point. amoung other things) the motor didn’t die though… it was just idling as we coasted but gas pedal didnt really do anything…
as we came to a stop the fire got really big (I guess the air was keeping it small’ish under the hood) and the smoke started to pour out from under the hood. dustin popped the hood and i grabbed the laptimer and notebook and did some ninja moves to get get away from the car a bit.
jeff from TSC pulled up shortly after with a fire extinguisher and put everything out in probably less than 2 seconds.
I hope this post will encourage people to double check there lines. Normally mine is tied up out of the way… this time it wasn’t and I missed it. Oh well… It could be a minor fix but its a good excuse for some upgrading. grin
I should be cleaning off the gunk tonight and if I think of it I’ll snap another pic.
As for the VW video… once the fire is under the dash pad… which shouldn’t have happened that easily there is not much an in car extinguisher is going to accomplish.
that video is brutal, after watching your car turn into a barbecue, my dad and I decided we should bring along a big extinguisher from home when we come…
