91Bomb said:

Well, that's it for my DSM! It went up in flames 4:30 this morning in Rahway, N.J.

Went out early this morning to clean the snow off my car and decided I should take it for a spin so as to WARM up the engine. On the way back I get 1 block from my house and while waiting at a red light I notice that the smoke coming from under the hood is much worse than normal and I see flames shooting out between the hood and fender! I put the hazzards on, left the car in the street and walked over to Dunkin Donuts to call 911. By the time the fire engines and police arive the whole front end was up in flames! Quite a spectacle as it was still dark outside and bright orange flames are shooting up and toasting my hood like a big marshmellow with thick black smoke billowing out. Passing cars stopped to gawk at 91Bomb's ?misfortune?

Later I popped the hood and everything under there was black, burnt, and gooey!

Anyone looking to buy a parts car? :

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ummmm Blow off valve I am guessing is melted or no? yikes sorry to hear about this you going to get another one?

I'm already looking for another DSM -- a V6 avenger I want to get out of the performance game (I think) so I thought the avenger would be decent and I don't want to go off dsm's cold turkey

A 2g is still definately on my mind though.

Can I ask why after calling 911 you didn't take the fire extinguisher from Dunkin Donuts and go put your car out before it got to the point of char broiled goodness? At least try to save something.
Hell, I'd be out there pissing/spitting on my car before I stood their watching it go up.

Because most fire exstinguishers use chemicals that will fahk with your engine and it'll do more harm than good... Anyways, if it has an EPROM I'll look into buying it!

CyberEye said:

Can I ask why after calling 911 you didn't take the fire extinguisher from Dunkin Donuts and go put your car out before it got to the point of char broiled goodness? At least try to save something.
Hell, I'd be out there pissing/spitting on my car before I stood their watching it go up.

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, i'm sitting at work right now and after reading that i started cracking up and everybody was staring at me! that sucks though man i've heard of this happening due to majorly excessive blow by shooting oil all over everything until it just goes up in flames

reading posts like these makes me want to invest in a little fire extinguisher more and more....

hmmm.. i migh just have to do that

marcmsj said:

reading posts like these makes me want to invest in a little fire extinguisher more and more....

hmmm.. i migh just have to do that

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I got one out of a first aid kit, its the right type and its mini and mountable!

that sucks big time dude sorry to hear that.....did u find out why it went up?

CyberEye said:

Can I ask why after calling 911 you didn't take the fire extinguisher from Dunkin Donuts and go put your car out before it got to the point of char broiled goodness? At least try to save something.
Hell, I'd be out there pissing/spitting on my car before I stood their watching it go up.

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A fire extinguisher didn't occur to me except that I knew I didn't have one in my car -- if I did I would've used it. By the time I got inside Dunkin Donuts and looked back over at the car the flames had engulfed the engine bay pretty good and from the looks of it I wasn't about to risk injury because I seen it was already a lost cause. True, I did lose some parts I could've sold and I was planning on parting out the car very soon because my motor was shot. But I hadn't started to think about all the parts I would've stripped off until you mentioned it. If I was thinking about those parts at the time maybe I would've grabbed a fire extinguisher and tried to put out the fire but those flames came pretty fast and unexpected and my thoughts weren't too much about those parts as was my safety and that of others -- after all this was my 1st car fire and it kind of caught me by surprise. My used 13g turbo + 1g mani didn't concern me or did the a/t cams, 390 cc injectors, well you get the idea. Also, the car was shot long before today -- it needed that engine rebuild, brakes, tires, struts, a tie rod, all rims were dented pretty bad, major paint fade on the hood, body rust, etc, etc. I've been looking for another car for the past 6+ mths so now it looks like I'll just step up that search. BTW, I've had the car for 8 yrs and put 100,000 mi on top of the 65,000 mi I bought it at so I when it burst into flames today it really didn't even concern me much -- I was more concerned with my AAA status being good so I could get the car towed to my father's house and eventually salvage my speakers, cd player, pager, and the uncharred parts I'll try and sell.


*edit* The car had been smoking out the tailpipe and the valve cover so much that I got pulled over on Christnas eve by a cop who had been driving behind me. He asked me if I knew why he had stopped me and I said because of the smoke? He replied "no, I couldn't breathe" . It was 20 degrees out so he didn't have his windows rolled down either and it was on a 50mph road. He let me go without a ticket and I cont'd to drive an hour and a half up the Garden State Parkway @ 60mph @ 20 degrees F. with windows rolled down -- I'd like to know what that wind chill factor was?

Anyhow I've been severely poluting the eastern half of my county for over 6 mths so I'm kinda glad not to be doing that anymore -- I was starting to worry that the people driving behind me would be getting asthma attacks or something.

jasoncitrano said:

, i'm sitting at work right now and after reading that i started cracking up and everybody was staring at me! that sucks though man i've heard of this happening due to majorly excessive blow by shooting oil all over everything until it just goes up in flames

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You're exactly right. Excessive blow by is what no doubt caused the fire. I had the breather element on there and oil was shooting everywhere including oil pooling on top of the transmission housing. So awhile back I fashioned a catch can that still allowed me to use the breather element while catching most of the blow by but after awhile the smoke out of the breather was suffocating me so I chucked it and put the hose back on running it straight down near the ground. This was probably my fatal mistake. As my engine worsened the blow by increased and that oil was probably flying all over hot parts and Shazaam! I should've run a longer hose towards the back of the car to avoid this situation. I also had to switch to dino oil ?which is more flamable than synthetics? perhaps? Don't ask me why I didn't just reconnect that hose to the intercooler route because I did. The smoke out the tailpipe was like a special effects scene from 'Uncle Buck' so that was no good either.

A melted dsm engine is not a pretty sight -- OH, THE HUMANITY!!

I feel your pain bro, same thing happen to my 96 eclipse n/t, yep =( i was riding up a steap hill when i got to the top i noticed there was smoke comming out of the left side were the battery is located, i stoped and opened the hood, and bling bling, FLAMES!!!! next thing i knew cops, and fireturcks were there..