Has this ever happened to anyone's B16 setup?









If it matters, here's a little info you may need to know about my car:
B16A SIR1 engine with OBD0 running PW0 ECU.

I was driving off from a parking lot, and then I noticed all this smoke coming from within my dash. I open my hood, and I didn't notice anything at first, but smoke was still spewing from my vents. I look back in my enginebay and see that wire begin frying up right before my eyes, so I shut the car off and left it as that.

I'm not even sure how to describe it. I don't have any wiring diagrams to see which part of the wire harness that is. From the pics, it's the wire that leads to the big plug on the bracket of the resistor pack (but doesn't connect to the resistor pack). It might even be as simple as 2 wires, over time, began touching each other within the wire bundle. I'm not sure what term I shold use to describe this, maybe some resistance going on in my wiring or something like that.

I still need to cut open the harness and inspect it. I think there may also be wires burnt up inside the dashboard. I just wanted to get another person's opinion on this, or see if this has happened to anyone else. thanks for any helpful info in advance.

 

this doesnt look too good, bump for you, i wanna know how this happened as well

 

Wow, my sympathies.

 

Wow! I've seen something like that before. In that group of wires there is a power (+) wire for the injector resistor box. If that wire is not shielded or taped up good enough it'll cause a burn. You're lucky it didn't cause a fire. A friend of mines CRX burnt up half the engine bay.

 

holy crap! are you serious?! I do feel lucky, because I was thinking of driving it all the way home, but then decided to tow it instead (good old late night styles with some rope and my friend with a V6 accord ) thanks for the sympathies and info. I still need to inspect the wires inside the dashboard so once it stops raining (damn I hate Florida's rain) I'll get my dash off and post more pics.

Any info on how this can happen? Do you think the + wire got exposed somehow through some good ol' florida heat or wearing away over time that it would just overheat and start eating away at the wiring harness? Any recommendations for solving the problem?

I plan on opening the wire harness, finding which wire is which, and find that + wire you're talking about and maybe even just tape up every individual wire inside the harness, and rewrap.

 

OUCH.

:.....(

hopefully the culprit didnt take the coating of 3 or 4 others with it when it fried, possibly shorting them as well.....

 

cranked the car back up yet?

 

yeah! only one wire got fried (I'll explain in a little), and I just cranked the car up just 30 minutes ago, so it's startable, but still dangerous to run. I found that none of my lights on my gauge cluster, but my battery light, light up. But, I hear the fuel pump and the click go off, but it doesn't seem to be reading anything (but the battery).

Well, anyways, here's the results of my 30 minute inspection.

I pulled the wires apart, and I found that only one wire was frying up. luckily, the other wires are still in tact:



the wires lead down into here, underneath the intake manifold:



This wire fried up, and it leads to the back of that big plug connected to the resistor box bracket. It's the Yellow w/ green stripe wire that leads between that flesh colored and blue w/ yellow stripe wire:





I also noticed a hint of gasoline smell coming from my engine bay. I discovered that injector port #3 may be leaking (the injector 2nd from the left)




I was in the middle of disassembling my dashboard for removal, and then I noticed this wire underrneath my steering wheel where my fuses are:





I'm not sure what wires these are, but it is definite that I have an electrical problem. I'm amazed that somehow, the wiring has gotten over looked that no fuses have any prevention of this wiring problem from happening damn this 1991 old school Honda technology :x

well, before I do anything, I will have find each connecting point of those wire (in the engine bay and under my dash) and make a dummy wire for the wiring to fry up (if it continues to do so) and then I will try and find the source of the problem and keep it from happening again. I plan on solituding the wire by itself so if it fries up again, it can fry alone. I'll put extra electrical tape around it as well. I'll let you guys know how this goes. If anyone else knows about a similar problem like this, let me know.

My caution for everyone for now, if your car begins to smoke up, shut it off right away before a fire starts out, and hopefully if this occurs to anyone else, I hope this thread will be of help to you


Modified by K_1 at 2:52 PM 5/11/2006

 

One check the fuses for blown ones thats why your lights arent working.. Second sounds like you had a fuse in that was way over the limit... 2 wires touched and pow

 

this happened to my d15 in my 89 hatch. well i bought it that way. mostly everything worked but i had a check engine light for somethin. replaced the entire wiring harness and it was all good. its not that hard putin the new harness in...if that means anything

 

Make sure your fuses are the right amperage. It'll say on the fuse pannel cover. Then trace the wire back and see if its fused. If not, theres your problem.

 

wow dude sorry to hear about that. Least your car didnt catch fire and **** ya know?

 

thanks for more info guys. you all are correct. I checked my car out today (no pics this time) and I found 2 blown fuses for the starter motor and my reverse lights and turn signals (fuses 1 and 2). Also, the wire in my engine bay that fried was C313 port 4 (Brown), but the wiring seems different from my manual to the wiring in my car. the wire that fried in my car was Yellow. the wire under my dash that fried up was Brown, but I haven't looked that one up yet, but I checked it and it leads all the way through to the headlights.

I had also installed different headlights, some sylvania silver stars-super whites, and at first, they were blowing out my fuses for my headlights-lowbeam, so I bumped them up gradually, from 10, to 15, all the way to 35 and they still blew out, so I'm running 40 each. I never thought that the wires would have done that. I think Ima just junk the lights (actually just take em out) and put back stock ones that suck so bad

as for the wires, I think I'll head out to the junk yard, and pull some wires for replacement.

Does anyone else run Sylvania Silver stars in their EF and had this problem before?
If higher voltage headlights cause this problem, then why would they be sold? How are you supposed to run them safely in your car?

 

I have seen an add on kit for high power lights which includes a relay and a sw. This might be what you are missing. I haven't had to repl the lights yet so I have no more info than this.

For all of you... do not replace the fuses with a higher amp one or this will be you.

10amp = 16 gauge wire = OK
30amp = 10 gauge wire = OK
30 amp - 16 gauge wire = a big mess

 

there is a problem somewhere in your light wiring, i use 100 watt low and high beams and still dont blow the stock 10 amp fuse, you have other problems power is leaking somewhere, the headlight wires could have heated up melting that wire going to the resistor box and shorting that. check it out

 

i rock silverstars and i never had a problem with them. ive had them in for 2 years and never blew 1 fuse.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by K_1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Does anyone else run Sylvania Silver stars in their EF and had this problem before?</TD></TR></TABLE>

I have them in my high-beams and have never had a problem w/ them...

 

I hope this had nothing to do with any of my problems, but 2 weeks prior to my wiring going bad, i had pressure washed the side of my engine of the front block, below the exhaust manifolds (or headers), and I also sprayed a bit of the engine bay itself but took caution not to spray any wires. Do you guys think any splashing water that could have gotten into the wires may have caused the problem? when I sprayed my car, I let sit dry for a whole 24 hours before I even drove it again.

oh, and yes, if you look at my pics again, my engine bay is still dirty...quiet! I don't wanna hear it!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by K_1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I had also installed different headlights, some sylvania silver stars-super whites, and at first, they were blowing out my fuses for my headlights-lowbeam, so I bumped them up gradually, from 10, to 15, all the way to 35 and they still blew out, so I'm running 40 each. I never thought that the wires would have done that.</TD></TR></TABLE>

i bet that's what caused this mess. i deal with electrical everyday and manufacturers always say don't install a higher amp fuse. i guess this is what can happen.

good luck on the rewire.

 

Looks like you got a wiring problem, if that were me I would'nt try to re-wire that i'd just get new engine harnesses. Re-wire the new harnesses, correctly!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by shoemaker617 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Looks like you got a wiring problem, if that were me I would'nt try to re-wire that i'd just get new engine harnesses. Re-wire the new harnesses, correctly!</TD></TR></TABLE>

Agreed, I think your best bet is to get a new harness.

 

thank you everyone for your technical support. I don't have much left to say, nor much to show you guys, except to what happened to all my wiring.

I found that the wire (Yellow) from my fuse box had fried and that same wire extends all the way through the firewall and to the big plug that connects to the bracket on the resistor box (again, the plug does not connect into the resistor box itself). The wiring that got fried then travels under the intake manifold and all the way through to the other side, which I haven't gotten that far just yet.








If it helps, I plan on hitting up the junkyard and find a replacement wiring harness and fix the problem. I can show how I fixed the problem (if this fixes the problem) and show how it was done if this ever happens to anyone else.

 

Alrite, well, back into my inspection, I finally figured out what was really going on with my car...

first off, everyone who said I ran too strong of headlights that it burnt my wires out.....was wrong! (including me )

what REALLY happened was probably 2 things:

1. a loose wire may have arked/arced its current and grounded itself and began burning up itself and other wires with it

2. I checked all my fuses, and for some reason my reverse/turn signal lights fuse was at I think 15 or 30 amps when it was just supposed to be 10 and it was blown out (as well as my starter signal), so I replaced my fuses, and started the car up again; checked the fuses again and my reverse/turn signal lights fuse was blown again

here's the outcome:





as you can see, everything is just a big mess right now from the outside and in



this female plug was the cause of everything, and if you look down into my engine bay, it leads to the transmission, right into the spot where oil leaks out from my head (I heard this was common in B-series engine running full synthetic oil...I could be wrong though) and the wire was not fully covered by my own mistake of not covering it and having oil spill all over it...I don't think the oil was what caused the problem though, but it may have





as for here, you see where the wires lead into the transmission, and if you know what this is, you would know it as my Back-up/Reverse Light Switch Connectors!!!

who would have known 1 wire as simple as back-up light connector would cause a problem as big as this?!?!





I'm pretty pissed at myself and that connector that I didn't take the time to cover it and safely guard it from grounding.

As for final thoughts, I could either just run my car for a while with the wires as bad as they are and have no reverse lights....or

I can spend some good money and switch out all of my wiring and convert to OBD1 which I've been wanting to do for a while

if anyone can help out, I could really use a 90-91 Civic Cabin Harness if anyone has one, please shoot me an offer

I could also use a OBD1 B16 ECU- I was thinking maybe a chipped P28 or a P30 if anyone has one. thanks! and if I do anythign else with my wiring now, I will post more...thanks for any input


Modified by K_1 at 9:01 AM 6/2/2006