FERRARI ENGINE FIRES

Well, first of all, go back and change your post so that your wife doesn't set your car on fire. THEN, check your fuel lines and the filler neck (i.e. where you put the gas in) for leaks. Make sure you have no loose belts...

Congrats on the Testarossa. Drive her in good health.

 

Lol.

 

Engine fires in older gasoline-powered (as opposed to diesel or electric) cars are pretty common, especially in higher performance models.

That should come as no surprise.

For $130 you can put one of these automatic fire extinguishers in your engine bay: http://www.interlinksolutions.com/firefoe.htm

I suspect that both your wife and Testarossa cost less than that!

If your life is worth even more than $130 (you never know, lots of people won't spend the money on fire equipment), for $145 you can get this gasoline fume detector for your engine bay: http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/categoryg/10001/-1/10001/13002/12411/8/man/asc/0/grid

Frankly, I've got the fire-foeauto-extinguisher in the engine bay as well as a hand-held unit behind my 348's passenger seat in the cockpit.

Immolation is a bad way to go, after all, so I vote "No" twice.

 

like these
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I love seeing the picture of the unlucky sod looking at his $100,000 F355 spider's burned out hulk that could have been saved with a simple $130 automatic fire extinguisher in his engine bay.

What, you'll spend 6 figures on a car, but not a few bucks on a fire extinguisher?!

Classic.

Wonder what that cloth top looked like from the inside when it lit up? Think that the guy was glad that he didn't spend that extra $130 then?!

 

Hey watch out thats a cool guy on this list(cant remember his name). I think it was some electrical fire and the car went up fast, hes lucky and has a new ferrari, I would not be so lucky. I have a extinguisher but have heard if you have a real fire you need allot bigger one than I carry!

Rob

 

Point taken!

Comment edited. There but for the grace of God go I...

 

http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showpost.php?p=136026923&postcount=9

PM Rifledriver and ask him what he uses to replace the craptacular OEM fuel and oil hoses.

 

Please let me know where I can get one of those baby's. Considering a long drive in my 355 this weekend and only have a handheld. THanks

 

Halon-1211.

Anything less, is well...... less!


http://www.ricambiamerica.com/index.php?cPath=627

 

That link shows a product with an operating temperature up to 130 degrees. I tested my engine compartment once and it can get a lot hotter than that.

Actually on a hot day, my dashboard can get to 130.

The automatic extinguisher is a good idea but... be careful, if that is the operating limit, high performance engines can get a lot hotter than that. I wouldn't trust anything that didn't have an operating temperature of 200 degrees at least for one of these engine compartments.

 

That's been my issue with that product also. It looks like a good idea, but it would be irritating to have it blow off on one of our 103 degree summer days

 

Paying $130 for a bomb to go off any minute isn't the brightest idea. Simply do your preventative maintenance when you are supposed to and there is no issue.

Putting this consumer device in a supercar is asking for trouble. Lot's of bad advice from the purveyor of said device. A Testarossa engine bay will get hot.

 

I agree. Those halon extingushers put out fires and ruin the car in the process. If it's a false alarm, you'll have many thousands of dollars of damage which you'll have to fight your insurance company to cover. The only people who should have an automatic system are racers, and even then they are driver activated AFAIK.

I think if you have up to date fuel lines and inspect your engine bay periodically you should be reasonably safe. If you ever smell gas, don't drive!

I keep an extingusher in the bonnet of my car. In the cabin would take too long to reach.

Ken

 

I think that you are making a big mistake here. You should have a little bit more love for your wife. When she gets hot it will be fun to cool her down. When your Ferrari gets hot its a bummer.

 

I've never seen Halon do any damage, other shut the engine down until the air clears. The dry chemical extinguisher make a mess that it hard to clean-up and can be corrosive if left, but halon doesn't do that. When I has in the Air Force years ago we had a halon hanger system go off on accident. The planes were fine and flew in the morning without as much as a special inspection. The funny thing was the trucks that responded.....when they open the hanger door, all the engines when out and won't re-start for 10-15 minutes. I think they changed the procedure to park not less than 100 feet away after that.


I agree though that 130F is way too low and that I would go with a driver-actuated system or a hand-held….. mounted in the passenger compartment, not the trunk of course.

The cause of the fire on my 308 was the cat and a front bank ignition failure. It no longer has the cat, so that won't happen again. It did fracture a metal fuel line and spray about 1/2 tank of gas over the top of the engine while I was driving down the highway....I notice I needed gas about 20 minutes after I had filled the tank, which I couldn't understand, I though the gage was broken. Then I though to roll down the window and I could smell gas. So I shut the engine off and let it coast as far as it was roll to keep air moving though the engine bay to cool it and dry out the gas. It was fine. I do keep a couple small extinguisher in the passenger compartment now.

 

I do not agree. A powder extinguisher will ruin a car. A HALON-1211 is the safest thing you can possibly use on a car.

No residue, no wetness, no nothing. You could spray a hamburger at your BBQ party with Halon if it flames up, then eat the hamburger with no ill effects. Try that with powder, and you'll be in the E.R. pretty damn quick.


The link posted above to the "in engine system" is NOT halon. I don't know what it is.

 

Just to add data for the OP.

My 88.5 TR suffered from an engine fire back in 1998. Cause was a faulty fuel-pressure regulator in the Bosch K-Jetronic. Symptoms were very sluggish performance, then my clutch pedal fell to the floor (overheated slave cylinder), followed by the bumper and plastic bits near it igniting. I got the fire out, about $40k in damage.

The fuel pressure regulator on the right bank had broken one of it's ceramic disks, and failed "high" meaning high-pressure fuel was injected into the right bank. The left bank kept working, causing the right bank to act as a pump and fill the cats with raw fuel. After about 10 minutes of this, enough fuel had built up to ignite and cause the fire.

Lessons: avoid early TRs (2-ganged K-Jetronic units was just asking for trouble), carry an extinguisher, pay attention to performance changes.

Oh, my local Ferrari dealer got the car, repaired it, it came back to me, *same* problem with sluggishness. It went back a 2nd time, that's when they tore apart the K-Jetronic components and found the broken reg.

 

I have been involved in 3 fires,

when the float bowl dropped off of my MGA SU carb.

When an employee had just worked on his ford pick up and he forgot to tighten something down.

And when another employee drove his ford pickup to work with a coolant leak that let the truck get so hot that a rats nest in the valley under the intake manifold ignited.

I pulled the MGA over immediately and got a 2-3/4 pound dry chemical extinguisher out and pout out the fire - quickly.

#2 had been on fire for a few minutes or two before i got there, I pulled a 5 pound dry chemical unit out of my truck and put the fire out about 5 or six times. The damned thing was so hot that the thing kept igniting again and again. We finally put it out with a bucket of water.

#3 Same fire extinguisher, refilled, two shots of powder put it out.

If you can get to the fire before it heats up stuff to the point that it cannot be put out, or has involved so much of the car that you need a fire truck to hose it down. SPEED is important.

I keep a 5 pound dry chemical in the boot and am going to get a halon unit for the cabin.

chris

 

Some of those pics are insurance jobs, IMO....LOL!

As noted, a couple of big ones in the trunk, and the balls to open the lid and put it out!

I've had two shattered headers (from ignition failure) lite up pretty good but both times I saved the car!

Observe the Owner's Manual service intervals, and pay attention to the car.

You'd better take your wife somewhere romantic for the weekend, and leave the car OUTSIDE......ifyaknowwhatImean.......

 

My bad; you are right. I confused the two.

Ken

 

FireBottle Halon system installed in 308. i went with electrical firing so have a button on the hood and also one where the cigarette lighter is.

I THINK it was Chris who said a regular manual Halon unit was OK but then i would have to get out of the car, open the bonnet (which would introduce A LOT of oxygen that may cause the fire to further expand), and then put out the blaze. All that takes time versus just pressing a button and BLAM, lots of Halon streaming into the engine bay. The engine bonnet stays closed to reduce fresh air from reaching the fire. No oxygen, no fire.
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I think it is important to realise that various models of Ferrari, in fact of different makes also, have risk areas that are specific to that model. This is not to say that crappy fuel hose quality is not an issue across all Ferraris, but 355s for instance have an issue with the fuel hose junction block or whatever it is called. I came close to a fire in mine.... http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=104806
A testarossa on the other hand does not have this particular setup, so any fire risk will be from something else (of which I have no experience).

The important point here is that it pays off to research as much as possible about the model you have and attend to the model specific risks BEFORE something bad happens. If I get some time, I might peruse the archives and try to assemble a list of risk areas by model. Once the risks are assessed and mitigated the next thing is to consider a halon system. Prevention is better than cure, but a cure is nice to have also.

Dave

 

Thats why 355's have so many slots in the bonnet.