Ignition Fire on '86 911 Carrera

triwave · 07-06-2004, 11:29 PM

Hi,

Let me try to make a long story not so long as I'm currently on business travel, but the situation is driving me nuts! The night before I leave I take the car for a drive down to the bank and 2 blocks or so into the journey it's starts running poor (hesitation, like out of gas) - so poor in fact I turned around to go home. In the turn-around process it actually stalled, so I check some basic things and tried to turn it over. Turned over fine, but would not start.

Popped the "hood" and smoke came out. There were flames in the bay and I panicked a bit, but blew like he&% and used my hands and a rag and got the fire out. The ignition coil was what was burning, it appears the thing overheated (shorted?) and the plastic cap on the top caught fire and melted down.

Anybody heard of this sort of problem before? Maybe not the fire, but coil failure issues with an '86 3.2L? The car has 101K miles and for all I know the coil is (was) stock and original.

Any theories if it's the coil that went bad itself or if it's more likely related to the distributor or ignition going bad? I'm thinking to try replacing the coil and see if it will start...

While in there however... it's a good time to justify some new parts to the wife. I'm thinking a new ignition unit, coil, wires, and spark plugs. Any advice on ignition/coil/wire combos that have worked well for other 3.2 owners?

Thanks in advance...I won't be able to reply real time as I'm still on travel overseas for a while but I really look forward to checking each evening to see what others have to say

Warren

rob justice · rob justice's Garage

In times of panic - nothing beats the old 'using your hands and a rag for putting out fires trick'.
I think you should try and justify adding a fire extinguisher to your list!

dickster · 07-07-2004, 03:32 AM

hi warren,

well i've not heard of problems (i have an 86 also). i would change the items you have suggested - wires and plugs dont last forever. not sure about the ignition unit being necessary tho'.

agreed on the fire extinguisher - i dont have one either!!!

triwave · 07-07-2004, 04:03 AM

Yeah, I have a fire extinguisher bracket in the car, but had it removed because it needed charging. As luck would have it the one time I need it it isn't there

KobaltBlau · 07-07-2004, 04:08 AM

I'm going to guess that some of the dielectric had leaked out of the coil, and that it was arcing internally, which caught it on fire. In other words, the coil itself went bad. This can be dangerous to your ignition unit, which is a "CDI box" on an SC, but may be different on a C3.2 (can't remember).

Coil failures are not uncommon, even with 100k miles. The coil is probably subjected to more vibration than it would be on most engines, besides being upside-down.

Maybe JW or another expert can confirm my amateur suspicions.