Fire Fire Fire - Toyota Nation Forum : Toyota Car and Truck Forums

bigdaddymike745 · 08-24-2006, 11:20 PM

hey guys today i came across something frightening. i was driving normally and all of a sudden my car started smoking. i got out of the car, poped the hood and there were flames everywhere. i put them out with my shirt and observed the situation. The amp wire from the battery to the fuse cought fire. luckaly thats the only thing that got burnt. why would it do that? someone told me that it cought fire cuz i have a 100AMP fuse in my fuse box. tomorrow i will redo the wiring. but i really want to kno what happned so it does not happen again. Im also investing in a fire extinguisher now. lol

silverxls · 08-24-2006, 11:33 PM

could be right. if the wire running to the fuse box is not rated to carry 100 amps, then it could overheat and burn without blowing the fuse, but something had to be drawing all those amps...a short or huge draw somewhere. is 100 amp the size that came in the car originally?

bigdaddymike745 · 08-24-2006, 11:37 PM

it is a 4guage wire. i had that setup for a year and a half now. i am still confused

silverxls · 08-24-2006, 11:52 PM

well, that could work forever, until something went wrong....lol seems that now comes the tedious task of finding the short or huge draw that pulled enough amps to burn the wire.

touringcamry · 08-25-2006, 12:04 AM

What kind of amp are you running?

Can you go with a smaller fuse?

Anshu · 08-25-2006, 01:33 AM

Id say you were pushing the 4 gauge a little to far. What amps are you running and what are the fuses on them. Also what quality wire were you using?
Did any fuses go? Everything still working?

bigdaddymike745 · 08-25-2006, 04:30 AM

hey how are you guys. i have a kiker amp which has around 1000Watts RMS and im using a MTX amp which is 200 RMS. Both amps are connected to a cap and the cap is powered through the wire that cought fire.

touringcamry · 08-25-2006, 08:21 AM

With that kind of wattage, you should consider running a larger wire.

http://www.bcae1.com/images/swfs/sys...nassistant.swf

Use this tool to determine you wire gauge

Y0tA _CaM · 08-25-2006, 06:08 PM

that happened to me in my camry. reason being the battery tie down was touching the positive terminal on the battery and the power wire from the system was touching the battery tie down and the plastic thing under the battery caught fire and the plastic coating on the power wire melted. it got so hot it like welded the bolt onto the battery tie down and the screw that holds it down broke off. i took a shit when i saw smoke coming out my hood

rexrunner · 08-28-2006, 03:10 PM

wait you said from the battery to the fuse right? that wire is not fused yet then, maybe it shorted out?

mazdaverx7 · 09-01-2006, 09:23 AM

how are your grounds? a bad ground can lead to a fire like that in a hurry.

mikegett · 09-01-2006, 08:51 PM

I would suggest having your amp and capacitor tested. Either one could cause a large current draw if something fails. Your cable prior to the fuse may have caught fire first due to weathering. The heat in the car bay will break down the insulation and make it more suseptable to failure over the interior cable. Deffinately think of lowering your fuse rating or increasing the wire gauge. 4 is pretty good, but overkill is better than having a fire.