First start of your project, how NOT to do it!

[starterguy]

This is an absolutely epic fail, nearly peed myself when I watched it and had to share with everyone. I saw this coming from the start, so many things to go wrong

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RBRCaVjYrM

[Barry Donovan]

It is funy, I used to get uptight bout engine bays going smaller than a 74 chevelles.

the v8 is truly a big engine.

that may be a candidate for some long jets and a needle and seat...tightly afr.

[Dan Barlow]

Have a fire with too much fuel.....what should I do......give it more air. Hope he doesn't give up though.

[Scott Liggett]

Starts engine with no water pump, front drive system, exhaust manifolds, and carb on backwards.

[SpiderGearsMan]

the old 600 holley

[38P]

Starts engine with no water pump . . . .

He made up for it with that brilliant external cooling system (garden hose . . . on a gasoline fire)

It must not have been shot in West Virginia or that couch over on the right would have been en fuego . . . .

[SpiderGearsMan]

soliciting donations if you are interested

[SuperBuickGuy]

I don't think it's terribly funny. Yeah, he made mistakes - but he certainly paid the price for it.... and doesn't have health insurance.

There's a follow up interview on Jalopnik, what he did was reasonable (continuing to turn to motor over to suck the flame into the motor. Then the fire gets going and he reacts in panic.... but none of you pharisees would ever do something so stupid.... oh wait, I've seen you all do such stupid things....

nope, don't think it's funny at all

[milkovich]

I feel kinda bad so I donated. I've probably done way stupider stuff (like the time the fancy new braided line feeding the turbo arced on the positive battery post and started a Kuwait style oil well fire under the hood).

Plus he just reminded me.... I own 2 fire extinguishers and I have no idea where either of them are. I think I saw one under the kitchen sink in the house two or three years ago. The other is floating around in a 1500 sq foot shop somewhere.

[SuperBuickGuy]

here's the rest of the story with some really neat pictures

http://jalopnik.com/idiot-kid-explains-why-he-caught-on-fire-working-on-h-486127646

[Thumpin455]

Hopefully he has learned from this, I gotta show it to my firefighting spouse. So many things done wrong, it should be required viewing for all wannabe shade tree types. Watch it first, then get a critique of the things he did wrong to stand as an example of what not to do. Then give some safety tips so people dont do equally stupid things. It is not reasonable to start an engine without manifolds on it with a gas can sitting on the cowl. Blowing on it is obviously not a good choice either, but water on a gasoline fire is even worse, he is lucky the whole garage didnt go up.

The 1050 on my blue car catches fire often, and when it does you just cover it up. Victor intakes dont like the cold much so its hard to start. Ive had other small fires, and my cousin did something this kid would have done on one of them. He nearly burned the 70 to the ground by throwing antifreeze on it while I was taking the 20 steps to get the extinguisher I always have around. That was electrical and antifreeze is flammable, but he panicked when I just went about putting the fire out.

Sorry the kid got burned, but not all of life's lessons are cheap and harmless, some really cost you.

[38P]

what he did was reasonable (continuing to turn to motor over to suck the flame into the motor.

WHAT! Let's see . . . I want the engine to SUCK A BURNING AIR-FUEL mixture through an externally-vented carb filled with inflammable gasoline into the "motar" . . . pulling a huge SBC-sized draft through the inferno . . . along with sucking more atomized gasoline into the airstream . . . and out the open exhaust ports just inches away into the exhaust fire . . . .

OH YEAH, that's plainly "reasonable" . . . maybe in some parallel universe where all the "body kits" are unpainted and every heap has a fart pipe and floppy, Boeing-sized wing on the decklid . . . .

Common sense and planning for obvious hazards not make one a "Pharisee."

[38P]

I say the impatient kid is unbeleeeeeeeevably blessed that he didn't die in a fire that burned down his whole house.

Next time, try spending more money on a FIRE EXTINGUISHER and less on the myopic vanity of a video camera.

[Bob Holmes]

Life is full of lessons.

[BBR]

Shawn's employer doesn't provide health insurance, so he's working to crowd source a little aid to help cover for time missed at work at work as well as his burns.

Rant on

TRANSLATION

Shawn blows all the money his employer pays him building a drift Miata instead of providing HIMSELF with health insurance and hopes people will overlook this fact and help him pay medical bills instead of selling the POS Miata and pay them himself.

THIS is what is wrong with America.

Rant off.