s50 strangeness

[rede30]

I was driving the s50 car today, picking up a rear seat from 884door, and I had some s50 failure. My idle started to jump around a bit when stopped, but it wasn't to extreme, just not a perfect idle. Then when I was nearing home the motor stuttered on a harder acceleration, power stopped at like 4K and it was enough to where I felt lots of forward force from in my seat. It kicked back in for a little while then for about a quarter mile it felt like I was running on 5 cyl. Then it kicked back in as I was arriving home and when I pulled it into the garage I let it idle for a second, which it did fine, but then the idle went crazy and the car actually reved pretty high so I shut it off and when I opened the hood there was lots of smoke coming from the back left corner around the brake booster with a burning plastic smell attached to it. What is burning, why am I loosing power because of it, and why is my idle crazy?

aaaaaah

I will dive in a little ways tomorrow morning but I was just checking here first.

[Farbin Kaiber]

Melted a vac hose?

[rede30]

could it be something electrical and I just melted a wire?

[OrganicMechanic]

http://r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=154758

[rede30]

this.
I traced one exploded ground wire from one of the three relays that are external in the engine bay- I forget which one it is. The wire is obviously melted all the way to the dme and took some wires with it. When I get to the plug I can't even tell what is going on, it's a mess. I am going to look for a new harness, this one was a hack job from the start.

So I guess now I need to trace some wires to make sure I don't do this again, i don't enjoy the thought of this next step. Any thoughts as to what would cause this meltdown?

organic, tell me more. I didn't quite get what the link you gave me says. I see similarities.

[Farbin Kaiber]

Wow. I'd get a meter out and check everything on the new harness before installing it...

[rede30]

are m50vanos/s50 harnesses the same?

[Farbin Kaiber]

Yes. Try for e36 over e34 for the extra length to get it into the dme mount in the glovebox.

[etxxz]

looks like a power wire was grounded... or squished, or found itsway under a bolt or something so to go to a chassis ground. i had a similar issue with a wire coming from the dme got cought under one of the dme mount bolts. it smked a bit, i smelled it and shut the car off. it was easy to trace thankfully. moved it, no problems since. [knocking on wood]

[rede30]

I just replaced a heater core valve and messed around with my gauge pod, I am going look over my work and see if I grounded a power wire.

[lennon]

man that sucks! hopefully you get ahold of an unmolested harness this time and you shouldnt have any problems.

[rede30]

man that sucks! hopefully you get ahold of an unmolested harness this time and you shouldnt have any problems.

I just ordered one from speedminded from here on the forums. I will probably pull the intake manifold when I replace it, or not. In my head it sounds like less of a headache to pull the mani.

[M-technik-3]

Thinking rubbing factor caused short and resulted in overheating of wires.

[rede30]

rubbing factor?

[Jean]

Nasty, good thing it didn't start a fire