RHD FD Engine bay fire. What to do now
 

Recently bought a RHD FD that has a short (Less than 1 minute) engine fire due to a failed FPD. Lucking nothing catastrophic but it did toast the wiring harness and rats nest.

Here is my dillema. I am committed to stay with the twins and would like sequential setup. Been doing alot of reading but most of the time people are starting out with good condition rats nest with maybe 1 vacuum leak. My story is a little different...

Should i try to source all the parts to restore everything and put it back to stock? Is it worth it to delete some stuff since its toasted anyways? Basically looking for some experience and wisdom of what yall would do in my shoes.

Also i may be looking for some parts if yall have them! I already ordered the new RHD wiring harness but i may be looking for the proper solenoids and everything else to keep the sequentials working.

The is very saveable. Luckily there wasn't much more damage. I just made a video with all the part numbers you need to restore this including the FPD and FPR.

I agree, source the parts (new or used) and restore it. May take a little time to round up all the parts you may need, but everything is readily available.

What year is your car. Are you sure it was a rat's nest or a rat box that got melted?

I am a great fan of trying to rebuild and reconstitute the twin sequential set up.

However, very few successfully end up doing that.

Most cars locally here have gone "reliability" set up with paralleled turbos and deleted emissions, or gone single turbo, in both cases with an aftermarket ecu.

As you have learned by buying a new emissions/engine harness, replacing all components of the rats nest system with new can be very expensive.

In the end, for me, the deciding factor in giving up on the OEM system was the consideration of how old the ECU is.

Although they seem very robust, the motherboards inside are 20~30 years old.

Although some aftermarket ecu might claim to be able to run the original sequential set up, I have heard of only a few instances where people have attempted that.

On the otherhand, as so many people tear out the old rats nest systems, piles of readily available old rats nest assemblies are available cheap (although many, many, have got chucked).

But I would not trust any used solenoids to last long.

@tomsn16 Is a very good place to start looking for rat's nest components. His parts are usually cleaned up ready to go. if you are otherwise stuck throw me a DM.

^^^I assume he's got the steel rat nest based on the sig line.

Can't see that file type. A friend's car had an engine fire, the harness getting toasted and shorting, I found the ecu (pfc) was toast too .....if you happen to discover it won't start post repair.

Its a good heads up for folk to replace their old FPD sooner than later (like right now!) . The little rubber plug on the top rots out, likely indicating the rubber diapharm inside is also rotted.

My friend sent me a video of his FPD with gas squirting out of it.

And he had been driving around like that.

Some version 4 cars might have been made in 1995, whether they would be designated 1995 or 1996, I don't know.

Based on the pictures he posted they are the standard 92-95 exposed solenoids, not the black box of 96 and up

Thanks everyone for your input and wisdom. Here is where I am at after taking everything into consideration. Let me know your thoughts.

1. Get a power FC. I have a brand new RHD harness coming in already.
2. Buy JUST the necessary new solenoids and route vacuum hoses to run "simplified" sequential. I would say delete the rest but the fire deleted everything..... so im basically starting from scratch to rebuild just what is necessary.
3. All new fuel components from atkins (FPD, FPR, And new fuel hose from primary to secondary). Also sending off all my injectors to get professionally cleaned and balanced. Replacing all the orings etc.
4. Doing air pump delete, block off plates, and a few other things while i am in here. The OMP lines got toasted so i am debating just deleting the OMP or replacing the OMP lines.

Hardest part is figuring out what all solenoids I NEED to make the sequentials work for the PFC. Lots of searching going on.

For the sequentials, you should keep most of the solenoids. Since you are RHD you are already partially "simplified sequential" without an EGR. That "simplified Sequential" title is very misleading, It really has nothing to do with the sequential and is just removing the Emissions related parts. If you are getting rid of the air pump you will just be removing both secondary air solenoids. You can remove the double throttle control but upon recent testing I have found that it is more beneficial to keep it for idle purposes but many have had it removed for a long time including me until recently, just don't drive it hard when it is cold. So that leaves you with 4 solenoids on the rack you need to keep for sequential (Charge relief, Charge control, Turbo Control and FPR) not including the double throttle control like I mentioned. You only removed the two secondary air solenoids I mentioned above, the rest stays unless you remove the double throttle as well.

Your rats nest really doesn't look bad considering it was in a fire. Everything seems like it is there and you would be replacing all the hoses anyway. The steel vacuum nest is fine. I would make sure your vacuum chamber didn't melt and create a leak as well since you need that for proper sequential operation.

the Vacuum rack is several parts bolted together, and its interesting because the emissions piping and the sequential piping are two different pieces
basically removing either the sequentials or the emissions is kind of a tidy bolt on thing, almost like it was intended

You are right. To me the "simplified" is just referring to simplifying your engine bay a little. I don't think there is a way to simplify the sequential system unfortunately :)

My car is super-simplified and I actually don't know all of the deletes.

It is intertesting to hear that one could simplify without losing the sequential function.

I'd like to look at restoring mine, while keeping the Power FC.

In my case much of the "emission harness" was deleted (actually a custom harness was made) from its remains.


You might find a bunch of things on your new harness might become redundant.

In my case, to parallel the turbos, the rear turbo actuator arm was welded in place to stay open.

But the crossover flapper was left operational, to retain a hint of sequential.

But I think i can hear it flapping in the breeze down there.

My air control valve was deleted entirely and the ports in the LIM closed over.. Which means the air running back the cat is also no longer there.

But I kept the air pump to use the pulley and maintain the balanced look of the original engine bay, The engine bay still looks stock (from three feet away)..

(We have a certain paranoia about vehicle inspections up here.)

Yes officer, it is entirely stock.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...00bbd59169.jpg


After having 7 years of excessive heat build up, I realized the pressure cap on the DIY AST probably was no allowing hot coolant outflow (or return). I replaced with a NIB AST ($175) and I am running much cooler. So be careful when replacing the AST with aftermarket stuff. Other than the AST, can you spot the one thing that gives away the "emissions delete"?


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...b9779d4fdf.jpg
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rx7...b8f6c5a463.jpg
Blow off valves still there, but neither is controlled by anything other than air pipe internal pressures/vacuum lines. Only remaining solenoids may be the ones controlling the waste gate, but even the waste gate may be only dependent on solenoid-less vacuum lines.

tough decision, I had to make the same one. I have fire damage to the same parts, vacuum box and fuel lines, harness, coils, hoses, injectors, very unhappy. Cause unknown seems to have started under the vacuum box. I am going all aftermarket, single, v mount, haltech igna1a etc. feelsbadman.jpg