Explanation to my fire, 16v issue resolved now please read

Firstly would like to thank everybody for the nice comments and concern about me after my accident.

the idea of this hread is to warn other people from my mistake basically and potentially save there car after a 16v conversion. ive cut my losses personally and paid up myself but coast me in all £50 to get it recovered to my lock up where il be breaking the shell and keeping all my running gear as thats where my money lies.

what happened, as id been going 70 up the motorway and pulled off, car filled with black smoke and fire was straight away in the footwell and attacked the dash etc as i pulled over, besides a vey nice kid who wasted a full extinguisher fire engine had to come.

the cause, the exhaust manifold was close to the steering boot and i had heat wrapped the manifold already, but also put a t3 turbo cover in front of the boot itself too hoping this was more than enough, drove 50-60 miles like this ok. obviously the motorway had different effect on the manifold/heat and lit the boot which will only burn up, towards the dash, pic below is without the turbo sheild in.


first chance ive felt like talking about the whole thing tbh now and want to warn people.
i will be putting the engine in my next golf, this hasnt put me off at all, however, i will be taking more precautions, aluminium plumbing tape around the boot as this will deflect heat and doesnt light, i will be making a steel cover to bolt on the steering rack either side to also deflect heat and put the turbo cover in there too as another precaution, tightly wrap the heat wrap again each strand. maybe cut and shut the outlet that sticks out further we shall see.


again thanks to all that were concerned and to my mates that were there on the day to help out

brad

glad you are alright cars can be bought and sold but live's can't (unless your madonna)

i have read about this issue with the 16v conversion and hope this is a warning to other to be careful

jellybelly said

glad you are alright cars can be bought and sold but live's can't (unless your madonna)

i have read about this issue with the 16v conversion and hope this is a warning to other to be careful

yeah thats why ive wrote this to warn others going through with it to just take the time to read this and prevent as much as possible! when ive made a steel plate as i mentioned and see it works, i will make some to sell on for cheap if there not hard to do just to help people.

thanks for the tips!

good luck with the reshell..

Glad your'e ok , good of you to be thinking of others and post up a warning,  all the best in the future

Yeah as long has your fine that's what counts mate, nice write up too on the warning. Look forward to seeing your new mk1

for 10 mins writing, its the least i can do to help others stay out of this position lol, not a fun place to be. especially as i got lots of concern about me afterwards!

as said also i shall be making some kind of heat sheild and will post up if i want to make some to sell cheaply to spare a few golfs.

thanks all!

Glad you are ok mate! Does this apply for 8v's with 4 branch manifolds or just 16v's? cheers

wouldnt have thought so, gti engine with a 4 branch you mean? id wrap it anyway myself for peace of mind.

i'd never fit one again and its the exact reason why i took mine off and fitted a standard mk2 16v manifold and had a stainless exhaust made off that and straight through, minimal loss of bhp and 100% as safe as standard ..



mAtt-

Thanks for sharing. I plan to do the same conversion one day and will pay particular attention to this area.

Dag4r

Gutted for you…

out of interest what type of 4 branch had you fitted, mines a dubsport, looking at your pic they are touching, mine has a decent (well bit of) gap between the manifold and the steering gaiter which will keep temps down.  Just wondering if there are dodgy maifolds out there?

Mine was storm is storm developments mate so quite reputable. In all honesty I'd do what you can to prevent/divert temp from it mate that's all, I'm going the extra mile when it goes back in. It was about 10mm from the boot itself so not a great deal.

robos_rado said

Gutted for you…

out of interest what type of 4 branch had you fitted, mines a dubsport, looking at your pic they are touching, mine has a decent (well bit of) gap between the manifold and the steering gaiter which will keep temps down.  Just wondering if there are dodgy maifolds out there?

Had the same Dubsport manifold, 1000 times better made than any other out there. If you can track one down, buy it. Looks factory fit and clearance is huge, i put my 9A in with the manifold bolted on, and it slid straight in.

Just wondering mate, I've just fitted a Supersprint manifold (heat wrapped) to my 16v and it's touching the steering rack gator do u reckon it's gonna do the same as urs if I drive it? I dnt want wat happened to u happen to me, how hot will the wrapp get? Any help wud be very appriciated

Dan

Can't say or sure, mine was 20mm away from it and lit up. I can only tell you to go over board with protection. Like aluminium tape rubber boot itself for the cat of £3 on eBay.

Next few weeks il have a plate made up so you get the idea if you wanna wait that long. Failing that biganddaft has got one on his I believe if you pm him for a pic?

I'm going overboard, wrapping in as tight as I can using 20m, tape on boot, and a plate to deflect the heat from it.

Dnt think I cud wait a few weeks mate lol I'm supposed to be drivin it down the Newquay for rtts at the end of the month, so need a decent solution fast, I've wrapped it with 20m ( that probly why it's touching) but I might use the tape in the boot aswell, just hope it's ok :/ cuz spend a fair bit of time n effort on the car and dnt want a silly thing like this to ruin all my efforts

Can't fault ya mate, mine wasn't the first time I'd drove it, was after motorway it happened obviously hotter manifold.

The tape should help it doesn't set alight easily. Take a fire extinguisher just in case man.

The same thing happened to me on my G60 conversion with a 4 branch ansa manifold, I ended up loosing the steering boot.

Just effed the boot off alltogether? What harm would this do the knuckle?