Hey all, I found this forum and decided to seek help from the experts.
Last June my 16 year old daughter bought herself a 2000 Monte Carlo SS. The day after Christmas she went out to start it and boom, the intake manifold exploded and started an engine fire. I got the fire put out pretty quickly, but not before it burnt the wires to the 3 rear injectors and heated up the injectors. The insurance company totaled the car and paid it off for her so she could go out and buy a Ford, but I decided it would be worth the 100 bucks to buy it back and try to fix it. It looks like all I need is the upper intake, 3 injectors, 3 injector wiring plugs, a new fuel rail and all 3 fuel lines.
When I pulled the pieces of the intake off of the engine, I see a hose that is clipped to the center of the intake gasket. My question is where does this hose go? I am assuming that when I get the new upper intake I will be able to see what it attaches to, but I am not sure. Does it attach to the intake, or is there another hose that was melted away that it connects to?
I used to be a mechanic back in the early 90's, but in the last 20 years all I have worked on is my own vehicles so Chevys are foreign to me.
Is there anything else I should check while I am working on this? So far my list includes the intake, fuel rail, fuel pressure regulator, injectors and wires, fuel lines, then a good flush of the oil and coolant.
I have removed the cover from the wiring harness and separated each wire for inspection and can not see any signs of heat on any of the wires except the injector plugs.

 

The first thing that would be agood Idea to do is purchase a service manual for this vehicle check ebay and this will help.



The next thing is see if you can search online for a engine bay photo. Like the one I have here.
Then also check youtube for Monte Carlo information and there are a bunch of service things there.
If you have a salvage yard close to where you are you can see if there is a Monte there and usually they have parts and you can inspect the engine
compartment (take photo's)
Good luck

 

The hose your talking about clips on the underside of the intake and bends up to the pcv valve.

 

Glad to see you're replacing the fuel pressure regulator. That's likely the cause of the explosion. When they go bad they leak fuel into the upper intake manifold, then when you go to start the engine the UIM explodes from the fuel vapor build up. Kinda' like a backfire.
Had this happen while I was looking at the engine of a car I was considering purchasing and Kaboom!
Plastic shrapnel from the UIM flew everywhere and I narrowly avoided serious wounds to my face. Needless to say, I didn't buy the car.

 

The parts store has service manuals, I think I am going to buy one when I go get the parts I need. I am going to get a new upper intake and a new regulator, then I will hit the U-pull it junk yard for the fuel rail and injectors. Good idea to check how stuff is connected. The local junk yard doesn't show any Montes on their inventory, but they have a large selection of Impalas. The parts store is an hour away so that will have to wait until later in the week, or next weekend.
Thanks for the information on where that little hose under the intake connects.
The only other thing I am not sure about is where the 3 fuel lines connect. They were melted into a blob of plastic. It looks like one line might be larger than the other 2, so looking at a complete engine might show what line goes where.
I think she got lucky that the hood was closed when it blew up, it kept the fire contained and starved for oxygen so it didn't burn a lot. She turned the key off right away so the fuel stopped pumping which also helped. I was thinking of how dangerous that would have been if someone had been standing by the car with the hood open when it went. A woman that lives 2 blocks down the street was outside and heard the explosion when it went. We are also lucky that my neighbor on one side of me came running with a fire extinguisher, and I have 2 volunteer firemen that live in the same block, so they came running when they heard it too.

 

That is terrible, cool your daughter is okay and the Monte is salvageable. Guess whop gets to tinker around and throw a couple wrenches. Hope the reconstruction goes well for you. Where was a video camera when you needed it... I would like to see something like a manifold go off.


Whew you did dodge a potentially lethal event. That could have got ugly real quick. Why did you not buy the car? Heard the owner was having a real fire sale, huge markdown in the asking price...

 

Side note, I have a set of 6 l36 fuel injectors if you need them make me an offer + shipping

 

There is a video on youtube of a chevy intake exploding after an oil change at a service station.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OJZbeG0rvY


My mechanic days and hot rodding days were back in the early days of fuel injection. What are the l36 injectors? Is that stock or aftermarket?
My last high performance build was a 9 second 1970 Mustang. Since then my wrenching has been limited to keeping my own rides on the road and making a couple of bucks here and there doing minor repairs for people on the side.

 

Actually, I did offer the gal $300 because she was a single Mom w/o a car. Unfortunately, the car had broken down on the highway and was ordered towed by the State Patrol to an impound yard, had been sitting there for a week and had accrued $700 in storage fees. Sadly, I'm pretty sure I witnessed the unfortunate death of that Monte.

 

Sad, you almost had it, nice try. Impound yards are vampires, and their actions probably did lead to the death of the Monte.

Hopefully you gave the single mother a ride home, to your house...:thumbsu p: