Saffron

Today was just another day as I was helping my buddy who has a suzuka blue s2000 change his oil since he doesn't have ramps. I also finally bought his hardtop today so now my car looks great

When he changed the filter, he didn't notice that the old filter's gasket (what do you know, it's fram!) was still on the filter screw. He thought he had it tight, put 5 qts in, and drove it down the road to head on home. Woops. He walked back to my house and told me his car was spewing oil all over the road and he didn't know what it was. At first I thought maybe he forgot to put the crush washer on but then found out that there was 2 gaskets, one old and one new, on the filter when I took it off (the filter was extremely easy to take off, also.)

I went to the store and got a Honda filter for him and 6 qts of new synthetic (this is turning out to be a really expensive oil change now) and returned to his sad looking S. I put the new filter on and filled it back up to the H and then we went for a ride.

The car wasn't leaking any but there was oil all over - we tried to clean what we could find but didn't want to shock-cool the engine or anything around it so didn't spray it off too much. When we got back to my house, he said it was sounding and feels normal but there was still a ton of smoke which we thought was just oil burning off. Woops.

We popped the hood to check how things were and BAM! there was a nice little fire going on on the cover of the headers. We quickly sprayed it off and he sat with a gaping mouth as shown here:

Was this just a little grease fire that shouldn't be worried about? Our plan now is to let it cool off well and take a degreaser to it, scrubbing it down well. The fire itself was very small but it was definitily nothing I'd like to see in my engine bay.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

jzz30

yea a small oil fire. just needs some degreasing after the motor cools

Saffron

After 5-6 miles and a lot of idling, it still seems to be smoking like crazy. It still seems to be coming from the headers or below but I've already cleaned the headers a lot. Any advice?

RED MX5

Clean the engine thoroughly with degreaser and keep an eye on the oil level just in case there actually is a leak somewhere.

Even after you clean everything up as well as you can you may still have smoke for an amazingly long time.

Are you sure the car didn't lose oil pressure?

Billman250

lemme give you a tip here....clean it down with brake cleaner. If you use engine degreaser it leaves a horrible smell that will enter the interior for sure. Brake cleaner will do it up nice.

Saffron

He had lost about 3 qts by the time he pulled over but no CEL light or anything had come on. I'm not sure if that means the car lost oil pressure but I think it did?

Billman250

It prolly lost some psi, but you're prolly ok.

Slows2k

Brake cleaner works great for removing oil, make sure you get non-chlorinated cleaner, it works better.

Simple Green or Greased Lightning degreaser also works well to clean under the hood after you blast away the oil with brake cleaner. Leave the engine running, and spray everything under hood, then use a "misting" rinse with a hose.

Take care not to spray H20 in the alternator, under the ignition coil cover, or directly at electrical connectors.

Fram filters are very well known for having the gasket stick.

S2KSpaYellow

Maybe someone did not put a thin bead of fresh oil on the gasket when installing the Fram filter. Putting a filter on dry will make the gasket stick for the next change.

S2KSpaYellow

Also remove the exhaust heat shield to get all of the oil off. I am sure some sprayed up under there.