Evening all

As per the title, i was on my way back from the Kent Scoobies meet on a dual carriageway doing 70mph in 5th just pootling back home when all of a sudden there was no power! I tried the accelerator pedal a couple of times and nothing so stuck my hazards on and moved over to the inside lane (was about to pass a slower car) when an almighty pop and massive flame came out the exhaust. About 3 seconds after that another bang and more flames then nothing. I slowed down trying each gear on the way until it suddenly just came back to normal and i had power again.

I stopped and popped the bonnet but there was no sign of anything untoward or out of place so i made my way gingerly back home. There are no knocking noises or anything out of the ordinary which leaves me stumped for a reason for this happening???

The car had plenty of fuel - 3/4 of a tank and it happened whilst traveling at a constant speed with no harsh acceleration on the whole journey (10 miles travelled prior to the incident)

Any ideas and is there anything i can be looking out for when i use the car next to help diagnose? I shall be checking all fluid levels before i use it again but these were all fine as of Sunday.

Thanks in advance for your help
Chris

 

Possible fuel pump pause/failure? Unsure really but if there was no power then the flames seems the likely reason. Hope some others can share their thoughts on this as im curious now .

 

Hi there I had an issue like that with my wrx and it turned out to be the dumpvalve it was sticking open so passed to much air loosing boost and making it powerless also making it pop bang out the exhaust. So I have since fitted the oem recurc and its been fine: ) . If you have a dumpvalve maybe worth having a look at that hope this helps

 

Thanks for the replies so far.

Fuel pump is a Walbro and dump valve is the standard recirc. I'm confused what it could be as everything seems fine and it ran fine for the rest of the journey home, albeit off boost the whole way :-/

 

Faulty air mass meter can cause this

 

You wont be getting flames if the fuel pump has failed

Sounds like an air/boost leak or dodgy sensor, any CEL lights?

 

sounds like your pipe between the top mount and throttle body is leaking slighty, just check its up tight

 

I'm running simtek so no MAF, no CEL either it just lost all power whilst the engine was still running.

It's done about 100 gentle miles today with no issues as yet touch wood. Just waiting for it to cool down so I can recheck all fluid levels as a precaution. It did take some water this morning before I set off. The header tank was fine but the expansion tank had very little in

 

Was going to edit and say that the fuel pump wound't cause flames like that. Sounds like something is not igniting and passing neat fuel to the downpipes? Or there is an inlet leak somewhere? Could be a lot of little things also Coil packs, spark plugs or as mentioned above things.

Did it misfire at all?

Hope you get it sorted though.

 

No misfire as far as i can tell. Spark plugs are NGK something or others that lots of people seem to use and are not more than 18 months old.

I did notice that the pipe connecting the top mount to the throttle body has moved, or rather the jubilee clip closest tot he throttle body has, not by much but that could be a cause. I have nipped it up just in case so hopefully it doesn't happen again. I definitely dont need it to go pop at the moment thats for sure!

 

I'd pull the TMIC and check the hose underneath aswell

 

It only needs to let a slight bit of air through to cause the problem mate, i know from experience :-) id say its not about to go pop so dont worry mate