So I was bombing around on the highway at about 80mph for 30 minutes to an hour and suddenly the car cut out on me with a pop. Turns out, the distributor had been melted by the exhaust! This is not ideal for going quickly. How can I prevent this in the future? Has anybody else encountered the exhaust melting stuff in the engine bay?
80MPH??!! How the hell can you go that fast. I am 4300rpm at 50mph. You must be close to redlining the engine at that speed.
80mph is indeed possible on the supercharged sambar, but it will be at about 7000rpm. The redline is at 7200rpm, which equals 140km/h or 83mph. I've done it in my truck once, just to see if I could get there. Yes it can, but I would never ever consider doing that for more than a few seconds. Honestly, it is astonishing that the OP did not spin a bearing while running at that speed for that amount of time.
I'd try going 75 and see if that fixes the problem. Otherwise you'll need to put in some insulation between the two.
You have to get Creative! You can not only rework the exhaust, because the distributor is fixed, and has to stay where it is, then add an insulated heat shield, like what's done on race cars, and then pipe in some cooler air, as you drive, kinda like a vent, that catches air from the front of your vehicle, and passes over your exhaust, by your distributor, and lowers the temperature of your distributor, while your driving! You still have to be conscious after a long hot run, and the sitting at Idle! If you really want to get creative, and you have AC. You can pipe some of that cooler air to that spot, and keep it cool, even at Idle! Good Luck! Limestone
One bit of clarification because I don't do words good, about an hour of highway driving, 5-10 minutes of top speed. Truck does have an exhaust temperature sensor (or atleast the light on the dash), but it did not go off before the melting occurred so functionality seems to be limited. Current plan is (short term) Replace the melted bits (note that if you've melted the distributor the exhaust has gotten hot enough to remove the insulation from wiring on all sides of the exhaust!) Rear folding access panel will be deleted to help let heat out Extra heat shielding for the exhaust (long term I'd like to replace it with something that runs a lil cooler) Motor didn't seem bothered by the exertion (till it shut off) thankfully but I'll be taking extra precautions in that regard as well. Had just put in a batch of full synthetic, will do an oil analysis, see how its holding up. May source extra high temp racing oil, or an oil cooler if necessary Going to do my best to make it so this truck can sustain a high rate of speed.
What you are referring to as an exhaust temperature sensor is only a hot Catalytic Converter warning light. Heat shield with a bit of air gap on each side to promote some air flow probably best bet. Fred
In the olden days we’d fashion air scoops for our air cooled VWs to combat the AZ heat. Not sure how much they helped though. I looked underneath my Sambar and wondered if something could be cut on the plastic shield in front of the engine to rig up forced air. Although a periscope scoop on the engine cover would be much cooler. Er…. Cooler too