My night began innocently enough thursday night while driving home, about 1am, i am cruising doing the speed limit in the fast lane, when two sets of lights start coming up on me quickly in the fast lane and the slow lane, i think they are cops and i move to the center lane. low and behold as both cars pass me, its two imports racing, a supercharged 1g MR2 with exhaust and a 96 accord with the typical honda mods. the mr2 has about a 4 car lead on the accord.

now my natural instinct is too join them so i downshift into 3rd. at this point the MR2 has about 6-7 cars on me. i scare this shit out of both of them with my dump as i pass both cars within about 2-3 seconds and gain about 10-15 cars on the MR2 (i run a 12.9@105 in the 1/4)

(this is where the story starts to get bad)

i slow down, and smell a lil bit of smoke. i figure its just a small exhaust leak and put it out of my mind becuase the mr 2 is coming up to do a ricer flyby and i easily out accelerate him again. at this point my freeway exit is coming up so i start to turn off and i REALLY notice the smoke now. i pull into the nearest gas station and as i do, the three alternator lights of death come on and i see smoke pouring out of the steering column. i go to turn the car off and burn the #### out of my hand. i limp it home (another mile or so) and find that the three headlight power wired that lead to the switch on the steering column have no insolation on them and were grounding out on part of the steering column.

Diagnosis: Alternator spiked possibly and took out the headlight wires *shrug*

Easy fix, right? replace the alternator (i have one with a lifetime warrantee through autozone) and replace the wires and all will be good in the world.

We fast forward to the next day, and all above said repairs have been done. Turn on the car, only 11.8 volts showing on my turbo timer. Uh oh. Figure that they gave me a bad alternator, so i return it for a new one. same thing. checked voltage at alternator: 16v. voltage at battery: 11.8V
so i start checking fuses and relays... alternator fuse looks good, alternator relay is bad. internals are loosely flopping around inside.

SOOOO i call the dealership and ask if they have these. Idiot parts guy askes for the mitsu part number which i supply. He says this part does not exist *rolles eyes* he proceeded to tell me that the eclipses do not have a relay that controls the alternator. *points gun to head* i asked him nicely to check again and he says oh wait here it is.... $45... for a lil freaking relay.

So i go to a wrecking yard, and find 6-7 of these relays off various dodge, chrysler, mitsu and plymouth cars and get some alternator fuses as well (also got a interior fuse box cover, mine went awol). total cost.... $10. Replaced the fuse and relay and the alternator still doesnt work.... at this point i am just frustrated i have no idea whats going on...

i am laying on the ground in front of my car thinking about what else could be wrong... i just decided to slide under my car at this point so it can come crashing down on me to put me out of this misery when i look up and see some slight scouring on the bottom of the radiator look towards the front of the car and see the the problem....

the main wire harness bundle has melted.... SH*T SH*T SH*T! i can see tons of melted plastic and bare wires showing... my damn o2 dump has melted it and caused some serious shorts in my electrical system...

So i remove my radiator and pull out the harness and the sheilding and this is what i see...

this is the wires i have pulled apart... the taped up ones are ones with no damage....

another shot.... you can see the shiny new alternator...

the main wires that were fried.... the headlight power wires and the alternator relay wires

After replacing about 14 wires on the main harness... the car is now running again... everything works again... (well except the power windows... but i think the fuse is blown).

i made a custom heat sheild for the wire harness and radiator bottom out of some aluminum sheets.... soon i will direct the dump out to the drivers side bumper area (opposite of the stock sidemount on the passengers side)


sigh i am so glad its over...

i cant believe i read the whole thing..

my first words were "awww..daaaaaamn" those wires got fried. sorry to hear that bro..hope u get it all figured out and fixed.

and may i say thats a mighty find brand new alternator u got there..clean!

p.s.
the 1st gen mr2's are supercharged..not turbo

-james

edit: nevermind, you are correct. d'oh, i made the changes above.

This is why we say...


EXTERNAL OWNS!


Sorry to hear bro.

so total money spent fixing the car: 13 dollars...


added benefits of fixing the problem... i got a SHORT shiftknob off a mitsu mirage that fits perfect and replaces the horsec*ck shifter... and i also got a stock intercooler duct.... mine went AWOL somewhere... =)

Damn dude, that sux horseco(k, glad you got it fixed cheap.

Wow, that sucks. Mine dumps in almost the exact same spot as yours. I think I might have to invent some sort of heatshield now for mine also. You got me thinking now... Today my low voltage light was coming on from my radar detector... My battery is brand new (even double checked CCA on Midtronics tester), and my AC generator puts out I think is 86 amps w/ VAT45 tester. I might actually want to double check those wires on my car... Thanks for the heads up and I'm glad you got yours fixed.

man that sucks, at least you fixed it and it was cheap. im gonna go make sure my dump isnt pointing at my wires now...

I would definetly wrap it with header wrap. Also it looks like the external dump exits into a underbody crossmember? I would think this is bad for underhood temps. The only way I would do and external dump is if I had it routed to the side of the car. I know you've all seen these, the ones with the hole in the side of the front bumper.

Alex man that is CRAP!!! So sorry

we been missing you here at work, we just got biatched at for like 20 minutes... anyways Glad its fixed, when you coming back to work?




Gimme a call around 2:30 if you read this I need to ask you something.

Heat protection is your friend. that blows.

what kind of 02 housing is that? did you make it yourself or is it a "brand". i got a VP 02 housing that dumps coming my way here in about a week and you have got me a little nervous.

its custom

Good to hear you got it fixed man. My RnR dump clears everything. Heres a pic.

Originally posted by fertez_turbo
Good to hear you got it fixed man. My RnR dump clears everything. Heres a pic.

Click to expand...

uhh is it me or is your car missing a peice of the frame??

Originally posted by djpast
uhh is it me or is your car missing a peice of the frame??

Click to expand...

Ahh, Im FWD maybe thats it?

Sorry to hear bout it. Looks like a real PITA.:thumbdown

Just make an extention on it so you can light the car next to you on fire :laugh: :laugh:

Good job on the rewire though.

Oh WHAT! Damn dude. He congrats on the 12.9/

New Alternator? Your headlights did look on at the meet but I chose not to harass you

my headlights were on at the meet cuz i am a dumbass and left them on . thanks on the congrats, i ran that last september at PIR. 14B POWA!

update: no sign of any future meltage... heat sheild is working great and i just made a getto ass extension out of 2" ID flex tube for the dump.

Good story. Horseco(k.. Oh man, funny .. :laugh:
Heard it before but it's still funny.

Hey it was worth it to scare the mr2 I just put a dump on my fwd Laser and the first time I got on it my car was smoking. I later figured out though that it was a coating that was put on the pipe I used burning off. I would find a way though to make sure it's not pointed at the brace anymore! You want the heat to go out under the car not back up