Engine Fire - Distributor Related - Pics Included

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by Zoom This

My center electrode carbon ball was left sitting directly on top of the rotor tang when I removed the distributor cap during a tune up a few years back. I called MSD to air my complaint and they sent me a new cap. I have been a little cautious about this happening again but all "seems" to be OK. It is hard to understand this ongoing quality control issue by MSD however.

Did your original cap have the little black venty looking thing you see below?

[kobrabytes]

I just wanted to echo the point about not having a fuel leak in your engine compartment, or anywhere else on your car.

When I first built my car I had a mechanical fuel pressure gauge on my fuel logs. After months of trouble free driving I smelled gas once after a cruse. I hit the power kill switch and jumped out to inspect the engine compartment. I found fuel had been DUMPING out of the broken gauge. I pulled it and put a pipe plug in the hole. I tore the gauge apart to see what exactly failed. A hole had developed in the flat copper expansion tube. The results of this could have been catasrophic!


I do have a halon fire extinguisher that vents into the engine compartment. But that would only work if activated. If it had of been a windy day I may have not noticed and walked away from the car...

Keep things simple, eliminate points of failure, use the best quality parts you can. As we can see from this thread, stuff can happen that could be a really good ignition source!!!

[Blas]

There was a thread I read somewhere that suggested drilling a small hole on the cap and then connecting a small plastic hose (like from a tropical fish tanks clear air hose) from the cap to the engine’s PVC plumbing hose. When the engine is running, you would pull a slight vacuum in the distributor, continuously purging the ozone laden air inside the cap and replacing it with fresh outside air to compensate for the vacuum.
Interesting concept….They make little brass hose inserts for use with compression fittings that fit the small hose that would make a easy connection to the cap.…and even on a damp day, the air in the engine compartment is hot and dry…The newer style MDS caps actually have a vent in them that could be used as a connection point for the hose …Interesting idea…Maybe I should patent it?