The Mini-Raptor, K-fab Style

[darwinpayne2000]

Anytime I feel like my buggy test/build is getting too hard or too complicated, I come out to the forum and read up on what K-Fab's working on and then my problems seem so much smaller.

[K-fab]

Anytime I feel like my buggy test/build is getting too hard or too complicated, I come out to the forum and read up on what K-Fab's working on and then my problems seem so much smaller.

Oh kiss my aaaassssss!!!! LOL!!!!

[jimmyg]

I'm sure you will have it fired up again soon. Just don't let your self get burned out over doing it.

[Jerm]

Man that's hard to look at. At least the valve cover didn't catch, that could have been game over.

Man I have been on and off this site the past while always peeking at this post to see whats new, sucks you had that fire. Glad the valve cover didn't catch as bdkw1 said, its magnesium, at least mine is on the phazer engine and I suspect this is the same. I work in magnesium die casting, when mag burns its the brightest thing you've ever seen. Also you'd need a class D fire extinguisher to put it out, not water and the ABC extinguisher won't put it out either. If you don't have class D, best is to snuff it with sand.

[K-fab]

Class D - will look into that.

Yes, the Phazer is magnesium also.

Over the years I've had two accidental mag fires - parting a piece in the lathe and poof (had this happen with titanium too). Fortunately it was a small piece and just made a bit of smoke and light (no mirrors).

The best one, though, was I had a 1 gallon baggie of chips (always saved them because they're fun) sitting on the bench. The bag had been there for a while.
Not even remotely thinking about it, I'm standing at the bench, bag off to my left side, out of sight, using the MIG and making sparks. I suddenly feel heat to my left and can see brightness starting to increase. UH OH!!!

Grabbed the bag by a nonmelted corner and yanked it off the bench - which let all the little chippies that weren't ignited join in on the flame out. It was like an old fashion square cube flash bulb going off but industrial size. Massive light flash, massive heat flash and a bit of backwards running.

Buddy of mine came running up with a bucket of water and started to toss it on the bright, hot mess - he's a big dude compared to me and don't think he expected me to tackle him as hard as I did to keep him from tossing the water on the fire. He was mid swing and me yelling NOOOOO!!!! hadn't connected in his brain yet.

Yeah, magnesium is fun stuff!!!

[bdkw1]

Learned something interesting. Halon does not work on mag fires, it actually makes it worse.

[Kuma]

I like the comment "accidental fire",
my Mag accidental fire story was when I made an intake manifold from mag and was doing a lot of grinding and drum sanding, I was wearing a flannel shirt and had a pretty good coating of dust all over it, while sanding I hit a stud and the spark hit my shirt and it just flashed over very fast, I don't even recall if there was any noticeable heat but it was quite a surprise

[K-fab]

Here's the culprit behind the fire.

The two layers of carbon and the layer of fiberglass veil in between survived just fine. No epoxy to be found:





eBay cam cover bead blasted and painted to match the mag cover.



I got the intercooler cleaned up (luckily no damage to the little fins inside) and put a new fan on it. (no pix)

New airbox modded (had to remove some mounting bosses that are not used - for mounting vertically) and new heat shield done - the stuff worked pretty well. The way the flames were able to move was what cooked the other airbox. I'm planning on a bit more shielding.





Headers cleaned up nicely.



And they got a wrapping of header tape (which I SHOULD HAVE DONE ALREADY! Dumbass).
I have one of the OEM heat shields on the bench and I'm waiting on the top half - will do a bit of forming and get them installed. If they can keep the plastic seat of a sled from going poof, they should be able to do the job here. I also got a little 4" fan that will blow air through the shield and over the headers any time the engine's running. Insurance....



Diving into the wire harness. It's a total loss but I'll be able to copy it pretty easily. Want to modify a couple things anyhow - the AiM system will be plug in instead of spliced this time. May move some of the components around too. We'll see.

The deeper I got into tearing things apart the happier I am - 90% is wire harness.



Gratuitous photo shot - walked past it and thought "that looks good!" so I snapped a pic.

[XJZ33]

Glad to hear it's not too bad and getting back together for you. It does look good too, and will look better at 50 mph in a blur across the desert

Sent from my SM-G930U using Tapatalk

[TheDoc]

Glad to hear not too much damage from the impromtu BBQ.

Everyone have a safe and Merry Christmas, chill through the rest of this year and have a great Next year...