lightning strikes my '85 vette!

[rusej at letu.edu]

WOW! Glad you are OK. FYI, electricity will usually jump about 1cm per 10kV, 
although this will vary depending on factors such as humidity, pressure, etc. 
So if a cloud was 1/2 a mile (~805 meters) above you, that would be around 
805,000,000 volts! Have you taken the PCM apart yet?

Steve Ruse

> > On the way home to Texas from the CorvetteForum.com cruise-in in Bowling
> > Green, my '85 Corvette was struck by lightning! My father and I were
> > travelling just outside a small town called New Boston on I30 in
> > NorthEast Texas Sunday morning when a sudden storm popped out of
> > nowhere. The rain was pouring down and I slowed to about 55mph. Then,
> > all within a fraction of a second, a bright flash appears on the
> > passenger side, a huge BANG and the car shook terribly, all the lights
> > on my 'Star Wars' dash light up then go blank.... smoke is pouring out
> > of the dash near the ECM.... the engine quit
> > running.... we coasted to the side of the road. It was so sudden and
> > violent. It appears that the lightning struck just under the passenger
> > seat,
> > and also damaged the windshield slightly. My ears were ringing the rest
> > of
> > the day. Pictures can be seen here:
> >
> > http://www3.ewebcity.com/marcho/strike.htm
> >
> > I'm waiting for the insurance to come look at it. We had to tow the car
> > home, as all the electronics are fried on the car. I had just had the
> > car
> > painted a couple weeks ago. Looking at the damage under the passenger
> > seat,
> > I still can't figure out how my dad didn't get harmed by the lightning.
> > It
> > was right under him!
> >
> > I had my Diacom laptop in the car and I hooked it up right away.
> > Wouldn't connect! Duh! Seems the ECM is at the very least DEAD! I'm
> > wondering how many other components that were designed for 5 or 12 volts
> > are wasted after the huge surge of electricity. How many volts is
> > lightning, anyway?!?!?
> >
> > Craig M.
> > http://welcome.to/corvette/


---------------------------------------------
This message was sent using Endymion MailMan.
http://www.endymion.com/products/mailman/


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from gmecm, send "unsubscribe gmecm" (without the quotes)
in the body of a message (not the subject) to majordomo at lists.diy-efi.org