So the wife and I just went to NM to visit her parents last Friday. Just outside of Plains, TX we came up on a storm. I took one look at it and said to the wife, "It's gonna get rough." She thought I was being over cautious. Well before we entered that storm it was 101 degrees outside according to the display in the truck. At the center of it the temp had dropped to 63 degrees and it was raining sheets of rain sideways. Visibility was surprisingly good though. and you could see about a mile fairly easily. I told the wife to keep her eyes open because it felt like a tornado type of situation and looked similar to those storms you see on TV where those fools chase tornadoes. Man it wasn't a minute later and shit went full retard. @James Snover remember that conversation we had about ionizing air in the spark plug gap under boost vs lightning? Well I got to see that shit in person!
We were travelling at about 50 mph down this 2 lane road. Out of nowhere this bolt of lightning that was probably 8"-12" wide came down and veered at an angle. It started at our right, crossed the road in front of us and hit the wooden poled, low power lines on the other side of the road. We were about 25-30 yards from this strike when it hit. You could hear it cracking thru the air. Sounded like you were splitting a piece of wood in a log splitter. About 20' or so above the lines the bolt split into 2 bolts with each hitting the same line. Upon impact you could see these 2 large grapefruit size bright blue fireballs burning around the lines!!! 1/2 a second after it hit we were then side by side where it hit. My wife was driving and as we went by the hair on her left arm stood straight up. It sounded like fajitas sizzling mixed with the sounds of buzzing electrical noises. 3 seconds later I'm looking out the back window and I can see the fireballs finally get smaller and go out. There was zero sound of thunder this close to the strike. Then the wife says the truck is acting funny and the CEL was on. I had noticed it was bumpy but I thought she had gotten too close to the shoulder and it was just the warning grooves in the pavement. Nope the truck was bucking pretty hard. I had her pull over and I popped the hood. I knew lightning could give off an EMP but wasn't too sure the range and how strong. I checked to see if anything was smoking under the hood. I was especially concerned with the battery but everything looked fine so I hopped in and limped it to Plains.
I figured it must have hit a coil pack because it felt like it was running on 5 cylinders. Everything else was working fine. So we had it towed 100 miles to our final destination. I had the CEL code pulled at Vatozone and it said misfire #4 cylinder. Looked up what was #4 online and sure enough it was the one closest to the strike, driver's side front. Pulled that coil and whoa. Look how it hit the winding of the coil but didn't the connector. The one on the left in the pic is the new replacement. That outside casing is very hard plastic insulation and it made it look like rubber. I assume it hit the coil, went into the plug, thru the head and block then down chassis ground. Makes perfect sense the EMP was drawn to the tight windings in the coil.
Truck is fine now. New coil and all is good but it could have been a lot worse! It's still surreal to us that we saw this happen. We went back thru there yesterday on the way back home. Well they had 2 boom trucks and a pickup out there repairing a transformer about 3/4-1 mile from where it happened. LOL. I should have stopped and ask them how much damage it caused and that we saw it happen!
We were travelling at about 50 mph down this 2 lane road. Out of nowhere this bolt of lightning that was probably 8"-12" wide came down and veered at an angle. It started at our right, crossed the road in front of us and hit the wooden poled, low power lines on the other side of the road. We were about 25-30 yards from this strike when it hit. You could hear it cracking thru the air. Sounded like you were splitting a piece of wood in a log splitter. About 20' or so above the lines the bolt split into 2 bolts with each hitting the same line. Upon impact you could see these 2 large grapefruit size bright blue fireballs burning around the lines!!! 1/2 a second after it hit we were then side by side where it hit. My wife was driving and as we went by the hair on her left arm stood straight up. It sounded like fajitas sizzling mixed with the sounds of buzzing electrical noises. 3 seconds later I'm looking out the back window and I can see the fireballs finally get smaller and go out. There was zero sound of thunder this close to the strike. Then the wife says the truck is acting funny and the CEL was on. I had noticed it was bumpy but I thought she had gotten too close to the shoulder and it was just the warning grooves in the pavement. Nope the truck was bucking pretty hard. I had her pull over and I popped the hood. I knew lightning could give off an EMP but wasn't too sure the range and how strong. I checked to see if anything was smoking under the hood. I was especially concerned with the battery but everything looked fine so I hopped in and limped it to Plains.
I figured it must have hit a coil pack because it felt like it was running on 5 cylinders. Everything else was working fine. So we had it towed 100 miles to our final destination. I had the CEL code pulled at Vatozone and it said misfire #4 cylinder. Looked up what was #4 online and sure enough it was the one closest to the strike, driver's side front. Pulled that coil and whoa. Look how it hit the winding of the coil but didn't the connector. The one on the left in the pic is the new replacement. That outside casing is very hard plastic insulation and it made it look like rubber. I assume it hit the coil, went into the plug, thru the head and block then down chassis ground. Makes perfect sense the EMP was drawn to the tight windings in the coil.
Truck is fine now. New coil and all is good but it could have been a lot worse! It's still surreal to us that we saw this happen. We went back thru there yesterday on the way back home. Well they had 2 boom trucks and a pickup out there repairing a transformer about 3/4-1 mile from where it happened. LOL. I should have stopped and ask them how much damage it caused and that we saw it happen!
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