Preventing hyrdolock...???

supertrick_05 · Post by **supertrick_05** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 12:35 pm

I just got my Iceman cold-air intake and I've heard good things about them, but I live in Minnesota and we get lots of rain. I'm worried about getting water into the intake. Would the K&N "Drycharger" filter covers work for preventing that? Says they're supposed to go over the filter and repels water. Has anybody done this before with success?

kc2005ptgt · Post by **kc2005ptgt** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 12:42 pm

you do not need one unless you plan on driving through a foot plus of water... but yes, that one should work fine

supertrick_05 · Post by **supertrick_05** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 12:45 pm

It's just for a precaution, don't wanna lock up my motor before 50K miles, ya know?

fixitmattman · Post by **fixitmattman** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 12:54 pm

Don't drive through deep water and you'll be fine.

kevo · Post by **kevo** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 1:31 pm

If you are worried about splashing water, make a splash guard out of the bottom half of your stock air box resonator.

INVUJerry · Post by **INVUJerry** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 2:22 pm

You could also get the AEM water bypass thingy, but I donno how it works, and how you'd be able to tie it in.

supertrick_05 · Post by **supertrick_05** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 3:21 pm

You have to cut the intake piping between the filter and the throttle body...I'm not doing that, so that's out

Adionik · Post by **Adionik** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 4:51 pm

I would rather spend my money fabbing up a splash shield than that AEM bypass filter, i hear they don't always work. Honestly a shitload of water is going to get there whether you have the filter or not.

I've been in some decent rain and swerved like crazy to avoid huge puddles....be careful.

jphillips · Post by **jphillips** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 6:13 pm

Honestly a shitload of water is going to get there whether you have the filter or not.

huh? I had a CAI on my Corrado that was extremely exposed and drove it through torrential downpours without any evidence of any more than normal amounts of water getting into it...

Mayby my idea of a "shitload" is different than yours....it getting wet hardly defines a shitload.

....OP; stay out of water deeper than 5" and you should be more than fine.

Arro · Post by **Arro** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 7:29 pm

AEM bypass will only "work" when the filter is submerged. Otherwise the drycharger water sock is a great idea to keep debris and moisture off the filter... not so much to prevent hydrolock but to protect the filter element.

But like Jeff said, you should be able to figure out for the most part what is a no-no puddle-wize.

BlackRoseRacing · Post by **BlackRoseRacing** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 7:57 pm

Stick with the stock airbox and you will never have to worry about hydro locking!
When I hydo'd my engine, at the time it was just an air filter directly mounted to the TB, long story short, I was stuck going through 6"+ worth of water and it splashed under neath the hood causing me to suck it into the intake manifold.
Me personally, I don't recommend the CAI anymore, but if you do go that route, make sure its tucked right behind the headlight and you run a splash shield to prevent any water from getting to the filter.

Adionik · Post by **Adionik** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 8:04 pm

jphillips wrote:
Honestly a shitload of water is going to get there whether you have the filter or not.
huh? I had a CAI on my Corrado that was extremely exposed and drove it through torrential downpours without any evidence of any more than normal amounts of water getting into it...

Mayby my idea of a "shitload" is different than yours....it getting wet hardly defines a shitload.

....OP; stay out of water deeper than 5" and you should be more than fine.

I run my CAI full time for the most part...and i've been in some pretty hard down pours. One time it felt as though the engine was bogging down.

By "shitload" of water I meant going scuba diving with the neon.

BlackRoseRacing · Post by **BlackRoseRacing** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 8:50 pm

We'll thats just it, anything over 5"'s of water I'm assuming will cause a hydro situation that we need to worry about..

soul_sword34 · Post by **soul_sword34** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 9:07 pm

A little water won't hurt your engine it will actually help it. Old school technique was to spray a little water in your carb and it'd remove carbon deposits from your cylinders, just like a good cylinder cleaner would. Scuba diving is very bad though. I'm just going to use a splash shield and the filter cover, no worries really.

Arro · Post by **Arro** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 9:46 pm

No no no that is false and misleading, please don't tell people a little water is good for an engine!

Water VAPOR evaporates in the combustion chamber, but a single DROP of water cannot be compressed, and can destroy your engine in the wrong conditions.... usually crushing a bearing, and you won't know that it did until the bearing prematurely wears out over the course of the next couple months... the bearing slap will get worse until it spins out.

Anyways just wanted to clarify, you really don't want water in your car unless it's vapor.

Adionik · Post by **Adionik** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 9:50 pm

Yeah that's why gotta be careful. You can actually hydrolock your engine on an $6 can of seafoam.

soul_sword34 · Post by **soul_sword34** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 10:10 pm

Arro wrote:No no no that is false and misleading, please don't tell people a little water is good for an engine!

Water VAPOR evaporates in the combustion chamber, but a single DROP of water cannot be compressed, and can destroy your engine in the wrong conditions.... usually crushing a bearing, and you won't know that it did until the bearing prematurely wears out over the course of the next couple months... the bearing slap will get worse until it spins out.

Anyways just wanted to clarify, you really don't want water in your car unless it's vapor.

Wrong! Water turns to steam....next...

Arro · Post by **Arro** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 10:42 pm

NOT so easilly! In an engine, VAPOR turns to steam. Water only needs ONE DROP to crush a rod bearing, and YOU WON'T KNOW until a month or so down the line when you hear the bearing slap loud enough over the engine noise.

I have nothing against you man but what your saying is misleading and potentially dangerous.

fixitmattman · Post by **fixitmattman** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 11:44 pm

Vapor is steam

Feeding raw droplets of water in an engine isn't ideal, but in small amounts it's not going to hurt anything. Too much water droplets and it'll ground out the spark plug and the engine dies. A lot of water in the engine at once and it hydrolocks, this is about the only time you'll get serious damage. I don't know what you're going on about this one drop of water to crush a rod bearing. I cant even count the number of engines that I've save after hyrolock or even complete submersion in water and have gone on to live long happy lives. According to your theory, every car with water or alcohol injection should be dead on the roadside somewhere.

Spraying misted water into a running engine with a squirt bottle is a really good way of cleaning up the intake vales and combustion chamber. I've never used it on a car engine because they've never needed it, but I've done it on small and industrial engines frequently and it does work wonders.

soul_sword34 · Post by **soul_sword34** » Wed Dec 26, 2007 11:46 pm

Arro wrote:NOT so easilly! In an engine, VAPOR turns to steam. Water only needs ONE DROP to crush a rod bearing, and YOU WON'T KNOW until a month or so down the line when you hear the bearing slap loud enough over the engine noise.

I have nothing against you man but what your saying is misleading and potentially dangerous.

Okay I have nothing against you either, I respect your ride and all, howerver, From my experience I have taken a water bottle, fine mist, and sprayed it in my trucks intake and it choked just like a TB cleaner and spat out some black smoke and actually ran better than before. This was on advice from my father who used to do this on big block Chevy V-8's. Been doing this for many years now and it does work. Really what I'm trying to get across is that small amounts of water, if indeed sucked up in the intake, won't hurt your engine. "ONE DROP" seriously? Just my experience bro. Not trying to flame you man.

Arro · Post by **Arro** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 2:20 am

fine mist isn't the same as drops of water. vapor isn't the same. And the physics are there. Of course, one drop has to make it through the heat of the airpath and combustion chamber and will likely evaporate *before* the piston starts to compress, but I just wanted people to NOT get the idea that you can just *indescriminately* squirt water into your intake air path. And the way you put it could me *misunderstood*.

I know all about alchohol and water injection, as I used them both on my Daytona turbo. But it's a MIST as stated above by someone other than myself. A mist will evaporate easier into steam than a stream. But again, to just say that "water" can help an engine, that can be misunderstood. It DOES only take one drop to crush a rod bearing, it's just that *usually* a drop will evaporate into steam long before the rod begins to compress the piston. But with enough water in the intake airpath (such as anything MORE than a mist spray), a drop *could* conceivably survive, and then your bearing on that particular rod will probably not.

Again, the physics allows for the *possibility*.

BlackRoseRacing · Post by **BlackRoseRacing** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 6:31 am

ok people, take it easy....
What arro is trying to say is, do not stick a water hose into your intake and turn it on to trickle some water into the engine. This will cause some of the water to not get vaporized and could potentially get into the combustion chamber and cause problems.
As fot the sea foam comment, its kinda funny you mentioned that....
We currently have a neon in the shop right now needing a number 2 piston and rod, a local shop decided to run a combustion chamber cleaning service on a customers car, and when they were finished the car ran worse after they were done with it. It just so happened it came to our shop and the tech found that cylinder #2 had a bent rod from trying to compress the cleaner in the combustion chamber. The rod never broke and the engine still ran with the piston skirt nicking the crankshaft

Post by **occasional demons** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 7:38 am

That's why I like the Mopar stuff better because it can be sprayed via aeresol VS dumped or sucked in through a vacuum line, which the volume control is pretty risky. I've seen some suggestions on here to use the brake booster line

. It can suck some serious volume through there unless there is an adapter used to make the opening alot smaller.

fixitmattman · Post by **fixitmattman** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 10:24 am

Wow, this post is funnier now

Arro · Post by **Arro** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 11:09 am

Some of you might think the "garden hose" scenario is absurd, but think about it for a moment, because people have done crazier, stupider things to their car because of misunderstandings.

And I damaged the bearings on my Prelude because I inadvertantly soaked the cone-style air filter (damaged rubber hood molding right under filter element, and durring heavy rains). Not submerged, but soaked. Three months later, a well-maintained engine with moderate miles had bearing slap.

MoxHair · Post by **MoxHair** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 11:24 am

I live in Florida, It Rains everyday. Just avoid the Large puddles and you'll be fine.

Arro · Post by **Arro** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 11:28 am

Yeah he's right... the only reason why my Prelude got nailed by the rain was because someone had sidwswiped the front end a bit, and there was a place for rainwater to leak onto the filter element under the hood, and soak it.

esteinmaier · Post by **esteinmaier** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 11:36 am

Arro wrote:NOT so easilly! In an engine, VAPOR turns to steam. Water only needs ONE DROP to crush a rod bearing, and YOU WON'T KNOW until a month or so down the line when you hear the bearing slap loud enough over the engine noise.

I have nothing against you man but what your saying is misleading and potentially dangerous.

A 9:1 compression 2 liter inline 4 engine has 1/20 (approx) of a liter of space in the combustion chamber at TDC. So more than that volume of water in a cylinder hydrolocks it. 1 drop would just go in and vaporize. You would never even know it went in.

I think you just were mistaken about the amount of water that got in. Oh, and in our cars, the rods typically bend before crushing a bearing. It's very rare to spin a bearing as long as there's proper oiling.

Arro · Post by **Arro** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 11:44 am

Mjust be some thin as hell rods...

lambostealth · Post by **lambostealth** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 12:10 pm

wow, someone missed physics.......

Arro,

You're pretty damn stubborn arent you??

Yes, one drop of water will kill an engine.............if that drop ius added to 60cc's of water.

Lets say the Neon has a 60cc cumbustion chamber, that means that a drop of water has 60cc's of space to hang out, that is, until the flame front hits it and VAPORIZES it INSTANTLY. However, if you already had 60cc''s of water in there, then added a drop, yes, you would have problems.

And to the OP, I hydrolocked my motor with the K&N sock over my filter, and I wish I had an AEM bypass, I have seen them save a car before.