The ghost of a flaming car came knocking
Have you ever been thinking about something from the past, just a passing incident, and then forgotten about it again, only to be confronted by a picture of that incident right afterwards, just like that, out of the blue?
It was pure chance. I dropped in on Anita’s blog yesterday and the most recent post was a picture of a flaming car on a flyover near Goregaon’s Film City in Bombay.
I remember the incident in the picture very clearly. I had picked her up on the way to work early in the morning and we were zipping over the next flyover when we saw this car, right on top, burning with a fury.
I know rubbernecking is dangerous but there were no vehicles in the rear view mirrors or through the windscreen. So I slowed down. Anita was in a flurry on the backseat, rummaging for her camera. I was quite impressed by the time in which she managed to get the camera out and take the picture. Or was it Firoz in the front seat who took it for her?
That evening, one the way back, we did not see the car or its carcass. No city paper had reported it either. A real mystery!
The bigger mystery
In any case, what scares me now is the computation of the odds that I should be seeing the picture of the flaming car again, a week after I recollected the incident for fleeting moments and then tossed it out of my mind.
Last week I was cleaning up some files on my hard disk and saw a small video file of a carburetor in action. I had downloaded it to see how the butterfly valve really works.
Now that I own an MPFI car, which does not have a carburetor but uses a complex set of sensors and an algorithm to determine the air-fuel mix, I am wondering what that burning car had?
Is a carburetor, with its complexity of moving parts, more prone to going off like a Molotov cocktail? Or is an MPFI system’s fuel injection more dangerous? I wonder!
Any engineers out there who may have the answer?
It was pure chance. I dropped in on Anita’s blog yesterday and the most recent post was a picture of a flaming car on a flyover near Goregaon’s Film City in Bombay.
I remember the incident in the picture very clearly. I had picked her up on the way to work early in the morning and we were zipping over the next flyover when we saw this car, right on top, burning with a fury.
I know rubbernecking is dangerous but there were no vehicles in the rear view mirrors or through the windscreen. So I slowed down. Anita was in a flurry on the backseat, rummaging for her camera. I was quite impressed by the time in which she managed to get the camera out and take the picture. Or was it Firoz in the front seat who took it for her?
That evening, one the way back, we did not see the car or its carcass. No city paper had reported it either. A real mystery!
The bigger mystery
In any case, what scares me now is the computation of the odds that I should be seeing the picture of the flaming car again, a week after I recollected the incident for fleeting moments and then tossed it out of my mind.
Last week I was cleaning up some files on my hard disk and saw a small video file of a carburetor in action. I had downloaded it to see how the butterfly valve really works.
Now that I own an MPFI car, which does not have a carburetor but uses a complex set of sensors and an algorithm to determine the air-fuel mix, I am wondering what that burning car had?
Is a carburetor, with its complexity of moving parts, more prone to going off like a Molotov cocktail? Or is an MPFI system’s fuel injection more dangerous? I wonder!
Any engineers out there who may have the answer?
posted by Zaki at 7:45 pm
5 Comments:
Hey, I happened to see a flaming as recently as two months ago, outside Sion Hospital. It later made the front page of Mid-Day.
Ashok, I am still baffled. Why would a car catch fire? What can be done to prevent such a mishap? Do owners need to take some precautions? Or is this something to do with the design? By the way, what was the make of the car that was burning at Sion?
there must be a reason, though no one has offered a feasible one as yet! but what a freaky coincidence. i remember now about firoz in the front seat. and i am pretty sure i took the picture. but, it was so long ago, that it's kind of blurry now. except the image of the car! i sometimes wonder whose car it is. the number plates are not too legible either...
Hey..that snap was indeed taken by me coz Anita was too scared to even look at the burning car..:)AB, how can you forget that..
Niether a carb. nor a FI system, will ever set your car on Fire, there is simply not enough fuel in the engine at any given point of time to set an automobile aflame, the way it was in the picture.
An overheated engine, due to a faulty carb may cause a fire, but I would think that is stretching it. Because the owners would know when the oil and fuel have reached the smoke point, much before the inflammables reach flash point.
An automobile should release copious amounts of smoke before it catches fire. Thus steps may be taken to stiop any potential ignitions.
Even then only if the fuel line catches fire should there be any danger.
Since the flames were beneath the bonnet, I do not think this was the case.
As far as Fuel Injection is concerned, it is safer, than a carb. Either your car works fine or it does not work at all. It should never catch on fire.
All these things are true if you don't screw around with your engine too much, unless you are a speed demon who supercharged, and force fed your engine to the limit, or have installed a huge AC in your 800, you should have nothing to worry. I am still trying to figure out why something of the sort should happen, seems like it is pretty common in Bombay (going by the posts on your blog)
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