OK, lets give some background.

New 350
New Injectors, MSD Spark Plug wires, Cap, Rotor
New Catco Hi Flow Cat, American Thunder Catback

The car has been running fine, I got about 100 miles on it and decided to drive it over to my parents about 70 miles away. On the way over, no problems at all, ran great. On the way back I got stuck in some traffic and it was relatively warm out, like 80ish or so. Halfway back I start to notice some power loss, I think hrmm maybe a spark plug wire came loose, but I figure I will just deal with it when I get home. The car is running at the regular temp etc...

I get almost home, coming up a large hill and the car just starts heating up bigtime, losing power, so I pull over, dont want it to overheat.

I pop the hood and have flames... yay... put those out, 4 of my new MSD spark plug wires are toast, Fan Switch is toast... no biggie.

Well after the car got towed home, it sat for a week, I got new plug wires, fan switch and plug. I got home today to put the new plug wires in and fan switch.

I get everything in, and start up the car and it barely wants to start and stalls out. I do some more inspection underneath and see that the 2 weather pack connectors between the O2 sensor and the harness have melted together literally, so I dont know if maybe that is my problem, so I cut out the melted connectors and just wire it together and I get the same thing.

Car barely wants to start, wont really idle but if I old the gas pedal down I can keep the car running. I can get it up to around 2500 or so, but I shut the car down. I check all my spark plug wires and everything appears to be connected. I check each cylinder pipe on my headers for heat and they are all feeling warm, so it definitely seems like all 8 cylinders are firing.

I checked my spark plugs after this too and they are all running hella rich, like super black and sooty...

I then decided to unhook the hardwired 02 sensor to see if that was my problem and it ran exactly the same as it did when it was wired up. Could this be my culprit?

I dont have a scanner and the car isnt drivable so I dont know where to go from here. Could the 02 sensor be causing my problems?

The car will start up, but barely idle and if you step on the gas to hard it will just stall out.

All other wiring checks out, only the 02 sensor connection, spark plug wires and fan switch that melted. That leaves only the 02 sensor as something I have not replaced, but I am not sure if that would cause my issues.

Let me know your thoughts on this. Thanks in advance.

 

Do you know the source of the flames? Where's your base timing set?

 

On initial start and any time in open loop mode, the O² is essentially ignored. If it is running rich, there may be a different problem.

What size injectors were installed? Was reprogramming involved?

 

Flames were caused by some heat wrap that wasnt meant for header type heat melting onto my headers. Melted the 4 spark plug wires on passenger side, along with the fan switch. No other wires were harmed on the passenger side. Like I said, I found that the weatherpack connectors to the O2 sensor were melted pretty bad on the drivers side, but other than that, those appear to be the only issues I can see.

The 22lb pink ford injectors were installed, along with a stock 350 prom from an 87 car.

Along with the 350, a 350 Knock Sensor and ESC were installed

Like I said, the car had been running great, but now all of a sudden its running like crappola.

Base timing was set to 8deg btdc with the EST wire unplugged. I reset the IAC, and checked the TPS voltage and all seemed to be well there (prior to this problem)

The car will start like I said, but any throttle action and the car just wants to die, you can get it up to 2500 or so, but you can tell that its just having a hard time of it.

I did try unplugging the EST wire and starting the car that way, and it didnt want to run that way either... is that possibly indicative of the timing being way off? I guess its possible the dist may have walked the timing out of wack. I am pretty new to all of this, but I am assuming that if the timing was off, that could be the source of the rich type conditions? Would that be too far advanced, or retarded? The Dist. appears to be in the same place it was in originally though, so it hasnt moved much if any from the naked eye.

Gimme some thoughts here guys.

 

No error codes?

If disconnecting the EST bypass has no effect, the wire may have been damaged in the fire. You may also want to check the TPs voltage and wiring. Anything on the right side of the engine is now suspect.

 

I should have said that when I disconnected the EST bypass, the car ran even worse, like as in I couldnt even get it to start. It would fire, but thats about it. It should have ran better if it was computer related correct? That kindof has me thinking timing??

I dont have a scanner, so I havent scanned for codes, I also havent unhooked the battery to reset any either...

I checked the harness on the passenger side and there is no signs of heat damage a tall to the plastic wrap around it, all of the wires appear fine.

 

You don't need a scanner. A paperclip or short piece of wire will work just fine.

 

explain? how do I find the codes with a paperclip?

 

Vader, sent you a PM.

 

Just wanted to give everyone an update. I was away and unable to work on the car for awhile, but got home this weekend to work on it.

Replaced the plugs, still the same, then I started checking for vacuum leaks.

I found one near the back on the passenger side where the hose plugs into the plenum. fixed that and it started running a little better.

Then my buddy and I decided to throw the timing light on, and sure enough... the timing had walked itself out of whack...

5 minutes later the car was back to running like her normal self.

What a pain to get everything back to normal, but in the end it ended up being a couple of simple things.

Thanks everyone for your help and feedback.

oh... and dont forget your fire extinguishers!