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Johnny's Goatbuilt JHF buggy build

Will Scarlet said:
If you're going to use those headers, have them ceramic coated after you have massaged them to make it easier for the plug wires to be installed. This will direct the heat down in the exhaust system better.

I know you're using ceramic boots for your plug wires, but I would also invest in something like this:

www.designengineering.com

EXO Series Protect-A-Boot™ Ringless - 8-Pack

EXO Series Spark Plug Boots are designed to withstand extreme racing and high heat environments. The outer Exoskeleton stainless mesh prevents direct contact with the Dual layer Silica boot underneath.
www.designengineering.com www.designengineering.com

Not only do they protect the boot better, but they also help to protect some of the wire too. If you're burning boot, you'll eventually be burning wires.

But honestly, I would either find headers that give you more room to work with your wires or use standard exhaust manifolds. In either of those cases, I would still have them ceramic coated. It's worth the price just for the heat reduction.

On a final note, I do like your build. Good luck... :beer:
Click to expand...

I had a similar boot to what you show, and the elbow melted just from radiant heat, no touching.

Big issue is that the packaging is tight, changing headers ( or manifolds) could lead to major redesign.

Fingers crossed this works.
 
Header dents and ceramic boots made it through at least one weekend. Engine pulled strong all weekend with no issues. I need to pull the hood and give it a good once over, but with the old wires and kevlar boots it was obvioulsly getting misfires.

Body panels made it through the weekend without getting ripped off. Pulled on the trailer at the end of the weekend with no obvious problems. I ran the first section of Mammoth on friday and a bunch of red and black trails on the AOAA east side on Saturday. I think I only winched on Mammoth and 2 red trails. Last trip in Sept 2022 I ran Boulderdash clean, but couldn't get it this time.

A friend said he could patch up the fiberglass hood, and then I hope to take the grill and hood in for a wrap. I need to do some paint touchup and then I'll get to work on installing hydroboost.

I'm hoping to keep it ready to run for the summer, so I can take a quick trip if something comes up, but it's nice to have it in good running shape.

Will likely do local stuff in July & August, and then hit either Oklahoma or some other PA/WV trails in the fall. Summer calendar is filling in quickly.
 
thanks to this thread it reminded me to toss in a couple spare plug wires and crimp tool in my trailer tool kit because my plugs are close to the exhaust also.

glad its running good besides a few mis fires though.
 
Manual brakes are ok-ish. Not horrible, but looking forward to seeing improvements from hydroboost. I need to remake the exhaust from the muffler back to make clearance for the remote hydroboost unit, and then plumb it all in. Hopefully won't take more than a weekend.
 
Preparing for Rugged Mountain Ranch next weekend. Been meaning to tie the ram mount to the axle truss. Integrated a winch tie down. I haven't done it much, but there's been a few climbs I've hooked up. The strap the winch hook grabs is backed with a slice of 1.5x0.250 tube, which is pretty close to the hook's diameter.

Other than a nut and bolt and checking fluids and greasing anything that can be greased, not much else updated.

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More to come, but on the way home from Rugged Mountain ranch.

On Saturday we arrived just before noon, and ran trails until dark without issue. Buggy did well.

Sunday we went out to run Tacket creek. Car was running fine until we were almost to the drop in. It started running really rich, but would clear out if I burped the throttle. I went down the trail maybe 200’ and it progressively got worse until I radioed my friends saying I needed to turn around head back to camp to troubleshoot.

As I turned around it was running worse and worse, drowning out and smelling of gas when a fireball popped and the buggy was on fire. I unbelted and was out, not on fire or burned. I grabbed an element and got it started on the drivers side.

Over the next seconds the three guys I was with got there with conventional fire extinguishers and joined in the fire fight. By the time my element died out, we had the fire out.

I don’t know the cause, my hope is to take it apart starting this weekend and figure out what happened.

Thanks to white-rhino and my friends for jumping into action and saving the buggy.

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I was 150 ft away. When it went up there were flames underneath, out of the hood and in the cockpit. I grabbed 2 extinguishers and was the fourth guy to get there. All 4 of us emptied an extinguisher to get all the flames out.

I 100% thought it was gonna burn to the ground.

Sorry I didn't take time for pics of the flames. :flipoff2:

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Dude that fucking blows.
But at the same time, I'm glad you were able to take the fire out.

Curious to ear what happened
 
Damn.... that was a close one.
Hopefully the fire was just because of running rich and all the fumes catching a spark... seems most likely with your account of the lead up to it...
Glad you are ok and able to join up back on the trail another day!!
 
Sterlingfire said:
Damn.... that was a close one.
Hopefully the fire was just because of running rich and all the fumes catching a spark... seems most likely with your account of the lead up to it...
Glad you are ok and able to join up back on the trail another day!!
Click to expand...
How is that possible ? The ECU doesn't decide to just "run rich" all of a sudden.
 
Our strongest supposition is the regulator went bad and the system got over pressurized till something started leaking.

He was running rich for maybe 5 minutes before the fire. The skid definitely had liquid fuel that ignited.

So how to run rich? The system would either ask for a richer ratio or it was force fed. But that wouldn’t cause a leak. So possibly high pressure caused it to run rich and eventually popped something.

We have not pulled any panels but the fuel line looks intact to the fuel rail.
 
No fuel pressure monitoring / alarms / engine safeties on the Holley ?
 
Bebop said:
How is that possible ? The ECU doesn't decide to just "run rich" all of a sudden.
Click to expand...
I didn't say that was what happened at all....i went off of what he said here
"Car was running fine until we were almost to the drop in. It started running really rich, but would clear out if I burped the throttle."
And then here....
"As I turned around it was running worse and worse, drowning out and smelling of gas when a fireball popped and the buggy was on fire "
Not sure what you're getting at i suppose.
 
I was wondering what was the reason of the "running rich". I'm curious. That's it.
 
I saw on the monitor it was running rich. I don’t monitor fuel pressure since I used a 2005 GM returnless fuel pump that is internally regulated.

We are 5 hours from getting home, so tonight’s job will be getting it in the barn and tomorrow I’ll start dismantling and looking to see if I can tell what failed. We have spent hours speculating, but didn’t want to disassemble on the road.
 
JohnnyJ said:
I saw on the monitor it was running rich. I don’t monitor fuel pressure since I used a 2005 GM returnless fuel pump that is internally regulated.
Click to expand...
I know it's too late now, but put a sensor in the fuel rail. The wiring is there already.
lowdoller-motorsports.com

0-100 PSI Pressure Sensor PN: 7990100

DO NOT USE 799 SERIES FOR DOME PRESSURE. USE 8990100 0-100 PSI pressure sensor 0.5V to 4.5V Heavy duty Stainless steel body 1/8" NPT thread Includes GT150 packard connector, pins, and grommets. (Pre-wired cable sold separately) Compatible with all EFI and data logging systems. Typical uses...
lowdoller-motorsports.com lowdoller-motorsports.com
use an AN4 female to 1/8NPT female fitting to connect to the factory rail port.

Also set an alarm so that when your AFR values are over 10% from target for more than 10 sec it'll catch your eye.
You can even setup a safety with that and make it turn the engine off on purpose.
 
Current monitor turns value yellow when AFR goes below a value, I think set at 12.5 for now. That is what caught my eye as well as noticing it sounding a little different.

Been thinking of the fuel pressure senon rebuild. Have not used in previous setups as I never had a problem like this. Plan is to install my analog pressure tester before I remove the rail and pump and verify pressure and look for leaks.
 
Interested to hear what the culprit turns out to be. Fuel fires of any kind are bad.

Glad you're ok.
 
I believe I have at least part of the issue identified. I stripped out the burned harness with the exception of the fuel injector harness. I left it in as I didn't want to disturb the fuel system, and a side benefit is the fuel injector harness in a terminator is on its own sub-harness.

There is a massive leak at injector #7 on the fuel rail. I powered up the fuel pump and immediately had fuel spraying out from the fuel rail. I can smell fuel in the dirt of the skid plate. I believe this is the primary source of the fire based on how the harness was burned.

Friday the adapter to my fuel pressure gauge arrives, so i can see if it's 60psi.


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JohnnyJ said:
There is a massive leak at injector #7 on the fuel rail. I powered up the fuel pump and immediately had fuel spraying out from the fuel rail. I can smell fuel in the dirt of the skid plate. I believe this is the primary source of the fire based on how the harness was burned.
Click to expand...
I use to work for an engine shop that built LS based road race engines. At first we used a set up like you pictured, and injector that basically floats between the aftermarket rail and the plastic intake. We had an engine that broke a valve spring and let combustion gases come up the intake. This melted the intake and let the injector fall out of the rail and burned the car down. After that we had the fuel rail manufacturer put inserts in the rail to clip the injectors to so they were retained to the rail.
 
Is that the extruded type fuel rail? That's an interesting idea. This makes me wonder if I might go with a stock LS2 set of fuel rails.

Yesterday the weather was warm and sunny for a Michigan Thanksgiving, so I took advantage and pulled the buggy out of the barn and power washed it to get as much of the fire extinguisher powder cleaned off.

Later today the an6 test port arrives, and I can check what pressure the fuel pump is at. I also grabbed a cheap smoke machine to see if the fire did more than cosmetic damage to my intake. I hope it's ok because when I bought it, they were $400 and now they have crept up to $1000. I would prefer not having to change the intake and the waterfall of other changes it would cause.

I did find that Holley has a black Friday sale going, so I picked up a full replacement Terminator system. I don't have a good way to check the computer, and the harness and handheld cables were burned in the fire. So I figure starting fresh will be easier.

I at least have nearly a full rewire of the buggy to do. I may make some other tweaks while I'm there.
 
Fuel pressure testing setup arrived. Holding 58psi.

With fuel pressure checked, pulled the rail to look at o-ring and this is the stand that mounts the rail is cracked and the nutsert was lifted out. Without the injector clips that 665.0coupe referenced, the fuel was able to flow out between the injector and fuel rail.

So why would it be reading rich? At best I'd expect this cylinder wasn't injecting any fuel, and would be pumping air or at least lean.

IMG_0858.jpeg
 
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