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Yup, thats right, my baby hydrolocked today. It was raining really hard today on my way home from work. I turn into my neighborhood and I drive in the middle of the street since the street is flooded and the middle is the highest place. Well I drive down the street very slowly and I notice the car struggling to get through the water so I stop and go in reverse to get out, but its too late, she sucked the water in and turned off.

I'm 4 houses away from my house and my car decides to die. I wait a few minutes and hope it'll just start up again, nope, she just cranks for a sec and stops. So I wait for half an hour and wait for the rain to stop and then push my baby to my house.

I somehow manage to get her up on the driveway, I really don't know how I pulled that off since it is a little hill. Well I decided to go ahead and open up the hood and check it out. I checked the spark plugs and they were wet. Dried them off and put them back in. I take the top portion of my CAI off and look into the throttle body and what do I see? I see my reflection in the water!!! I got the water out and opened up the throttle body to look inside the intake manifold, oh look, its me again!

I get all the water out of there, put everything back together. I hop in, try to start her just to see if I could. First try, she would just give a jump for a sec and turn off. I try again and hit the gas this time and she struggles back to life and makes it. My baby idled very rough for a minute then it was all smooth again. So yea, shes working but she is idling kinda funny, like the idle is very low. I also noticed I have a oil leak now right where the transmission connects tot he block on the right, but it seems to be at the top where I can't see. I took her around the block and she seems to run fine, accelerates fine. I'm just scared right now. Sorry for the long *** post.

CN: My car hydrolocked, I took her apart, got the water out, she started up. Idles kinda low and now has a oil leak, but a very small one.

 
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it's time to invest in a bypass.

 
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lucky for you that in didnt suck enough water and compressed it.that was smart of you to remove all that water before starting the car.it coulda ruined your whole motor and put a hole in your pocket.

 
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Another story displaying that the bypass valve is still a necessary piece to the CAI. You never know when it could come in handy.
At $45.00 it's a steal compared to the headaches or loss of and engine.

 
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or for us more paranoid people (me included), a short ram intake

 
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ur sooooo lucky, o well, umm, now you should go to a good mechanic very very very soon to check out the leaks, and see how to fix the idle... lucky bastord...

 
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u should change the oil now 2.. because most of the time the oil is mixed in with water 2 ~

 
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which intake was this? AEM, INJEN?.. you got really really really really lucky too

 
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bypass valve aren't worth the money, IMO.

only works when fully submerged.. and even then, it doesn't work 100% of the time.

 
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I think it's time to avoid all puddles instead. He was asking for it and got very, very lucky in the end.

 
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trust me on this one, for the .2 more horse power a CAI gives you over a SRI its not worth it. They are completely useless and a real hazard to your motor.

this is your connecting rod.


this is your connecting rod on water....any questions?

 
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Yea, I got very lucky. I'm taking my CAI out and putting my stock air box in. For the money you spend on these things for no gains and the risks, I think I'll stick with my stock air box. This was a AEM intake.

 
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dam hawk that was scarry, don't ever do that again!!!

hawk
so how long till the engine is finished?

 
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thats what i'm trying to do, try to make it clear that CAI's are to much of a risk, and theres no gain, so therefore theres no reason to have them. Trust me you don't want to be without a car for almost 3 months, it sucks.

 
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is your car at stock height or if not how far is it lowered, i have the injen cai and when i come over a puddle i put it in neutral and roll through it but i noticed that sometimes a splash of water in the filter will cause a sorta knocking noise and then it works itself out. anyone else notice this

 
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sorry about your car man.

2 things I wanted to address.

Number one, a CAI will typically gain at least DOUBLE what an SRI will. In some cases an SRI will actually HURT performance. (unless of course you believe all the dyno charts the manufacturers use)

Number two, a bypass valve takes away some of the horsepower you gained, and it's not 100% anyways... so maybe you should stick to avoiding puddles.

 
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I'm with the Giver of sock beatings, y0!

 
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yeah your lucky bastage, i would change my oil though

 
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Same thing happened to me I ran through a really deep puddle one night and I have the AEM CAI and at the time I didnt have a bypass... sucked water right up and the car died... I was stuck in the middle of no where for about a good 15 minutes.... luckily it started back up, got the bypass the next day... havent had a problem in the rain since

 
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I didnt see or maybe I missed, but Iceman had the same thing happen. They found a whole bucket of water in the block when they took it apart.

 
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I usually carry around a spare air filter, and when it starts to rain I just pull over somewhere, pop the hood and disconnect the two pipes, push the bottom one out of the way and fit the spare air filter on the top pipe. Instant SRI.

 
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isnt that a pain in the *** tho? Every time it rains? I was going to get a CAI but now i am nervous...

 
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Well, I cleaned off the plugs with WD40 so they won't rust. I changed the oil once and it was sooo damn watery. It looked like chocolate milk, not the traditional black coffee look I get. After changing the oil, I ran the car for 100 miles so it can try and clean anything out. I got home and changed the oil a second time. Everything seems fine now. The rough idling went away, I just want to check the transmission to make sure no water got in there.

 
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sounds like you are lucky......and why dont you just make an sri outta ya cai?......you can do that right.....i just got the ww avenger kit put on my ride, and ill prolly do that now...i just hope it will sound the same.....oh well, better safe than sorry.....