Hey guys, just thought I'd share something that just happened to me. If you're turbocharged and you have cruise control, be sure to get some kind of heat shield and route the cruise throttle cable and hose away from the turbine housing and downpipe. The radiant heat and increase in air temperature is enough to melt the outer jacket of the cruise throttle cable, which can cause it to stick and not allow the cruise control to let go of the throttle, making it accelerate uncontrollably.

If this does happen to you, immediately put it in neutral and pry the gas pedal back with your foot. Make good use of that rev limiter. Don't use cruise control again until you replace the cable. This phenomenon happened to me a couple of times before I got back to my garage and took a look at the cruise system. At first I thought my actuator had failed, but upon removing it I saw what had really happened.

I have another cable I will be installing and I will be covering it with a heat shield to help prevent this from happening again.

 

Before I got my heat shield the outer housing of the cruise cable got burnt and crusty. I slit a fuel line to put over it as an insulator. No acceleration issues, yet. I wondered if I could have lubed the cable through the metal housing, but didn't want to add anything that would attract dirt.

 

Throttle and speedo cables can do that also. Shield everything. Especially the left front steel brake line between the turbo and the frame rail.

 

Good idea, I'll insulate those parts as well. The cruise control cable is just especially vulnerable because it's covered in plastic and naturally runs very close to the turbo, hence why it melted.

 

My speedo cable melted in two.

 

Yeah I'm definitely going to cover the throttle cable as well.