The original 84's only held like 3 quarts of oil and GM got a batch of less than perfect rods. If the engine was run to low

on oil, the rod would fly out the front of the block pouring oil all over the exhaust and catalytic converter which started the

fire. IMHO, if you run your car that low on oil, maybe you deserve a fire. They added heat shields and increased the

oil capacity to 4+ quarts and even replaced some engines that had the bad rods.

Well, here it is, in a nutshell. The fiero factory was bieng supplied with bad connection rod's by GM. Supposedly, up to

60% of them were bad. Also, before the recall's, the fiero could only hold 3 quarts of oil, and it was easy to let it get way

too low. So you can see what I am getting at; low oil level instigates already bad rod, and it is thrown through the engine

block. Now, if you take a look at a 4cyl car, you will see that if it was thrown on the firewall side, hot oil and gas would

spill all over the exaust manifold and the catalytic converting, both of which are extremely hot. The car would just burn to

the ground once it got going, because the plastic body panels would ignite.

1. Antifreeze or Oil leaking on the exhaust system from the engine or A/T tranny cooling lines. When oil hits the CAT you'll usually get a fire.

2. Leaking Gas Line at hose connections or ruptured hoses etc.

3. Siezed brakes and/or leaking brake fluid.

4. Leaking or burst Air Conditioning Line

5. A belt which spins on a siezed A/C compressor or water pump

6. Shorted Wires

7. Defective check valve in evaporative cannister. This allows the cannister to fill with gas when the gas tank is severely

8. Leaves falling on the exhaust system through the deck lid opening. They will ignite!! (now that fall is near watch closely)

9. Parking or driving the car on high grass

10. Severe Overheating