The battery was dead when I tried to start it (haven't driven in over a week, old old old battery). I got a jump from a friend and tried to start it...heard some kind of strange clicking noise and all of a sudden WHOOOSH!! Fire was coming out from right under the dipstick/intake elbow area....I quickly shut the car off and extinguished the fire, and when I took a quick look I noticed one of my plug wires was off. Now I'm freaked out.

A) What the hell combustible fluid was burning so easily in my engine bay? I know I have a tiny oil leak, but I can't imagine 20w50 just going up in flames like that from a plugwire

B) Why the hell was my plugwire off?!

C) God damnit why can't a battery just hold a charge in cold weather!?

I'm not going to touch the car again until I can take a look at it in the daylight and make sure everything is buttoned up properly, but this is really disheartening and only adds to the ever lengthening list of crap I have to fix on this thing just to get it back to "stock" style reliability before I can start throwing performance mods at it.

~Tim

 

did ur battery fluid maybe leak outta the battery and drip onto something else and eat it away?...maybe u had a leaky injector that finally sparked a fire...

 

Take your time, wait, and look at it again in the day. Sounds like you caught it before any major damage or problems happened.

What kind of plug wires do you have? Cheap wires that don't fit well aren't a good idea . The stock NGK wires are DIRT cheap and a good idea if this is a problem.

I would pressure test the fuel system and look THOROUGHLY for fuel leaks. A fuel leak, a plug wire that's off, that's a recipe for a fire!

Take your time, find the problems, fix the ROOT of the problem.

On the battery - do you have an aftermarket stereo, car alarm, etc. that could be putting a drain on the battery?

Dale

 

what about the alternator? could not be recharging the bat.?

 

The alternator charges it fine, if I drive the car daily, no problems. It's sat for about a week so there must be a slow drain. The car has both an aftermarket stereo, car alarm, and turbo timer that's a bit screwy....so it's definately possible something's eating power slowly. This didn't smell like a fuel fire, which I have a certain amount of experience with having lit a couple of lawn mowers and tractors on fire accidentally...so I'm doubtful initially of that as an option, however I won't rule it out until I pressurize the fuel system and look for drips/leaks/etc. I believe they're still the stock plug wires, new ones, but OEM nonetheless. I'll take a look at those too and make sure they're seating properly on the plugs. Battery isn't leaking, so I'm not afraid of acid or anything like that. It just sucks, I had plans to drive from MD to NY next week and now I'm a little freaked out...until I can get up in the engine bay and look around thoroughly with a flashlight, I might be S.O.L.

~Tim

 

don't worry about the battery, I think all our cars do that...as far as the fire goes you probably have a small fuel leak.

 

Tim, get out while you still can....trade your FD for my FC!

 

gas maybe?..pulsation damper..hell just a guess..glad you caught it though..good reflex!

 

There is a 'catch' pipe that sits really close to the plug wires. It goes into the charcol canister. What does that hold? (Is it a catch for oil?)

Just curious as that line might have come loose and emptied it's contents onto the spark...

 

your sig is hilarious...just had to say that

 

I have to ask. How did you connect the booster cables?
The typical + to + and - to - ? Or did you run it the correct way?

I've jumped enough cars to see a few batteries give off a good flame or flash as you try to start them from the arc under load. While the hydrogen is a lot lighter then air and should float up, your battery could have a vent line that's venting next to the starter. When you went to start the car, the starter might have flashed the hydrogen.

Feel free to shoot it down, but anything could happen with an FD

 

i would say a leak in fuel lines, since that it where the fuel feeds into the rats nest.

btw, im gonna pick up a fire extinguisher soon

 

Yeah, it was underneath the fuel pressure regulator, well away from the battery. Good info though.

I'm guessing slight fuel leak or some oil leaking...and it was 100% started by the arcing plugwire.

It sucks

 

Dude, new plug wires are $25-35. A new battery can be had for as cheap as $50. That's a cheap fix, aside from fixing the fuel leak.


-s-