OK, this needs some background. I lost the passenger side fender liner a while ago on my car. I kept putting off buying a new one, even though I knew I needed it. I'm a moron, but that's not why I'm posting.

It was raining Friday morning. I found a puddle that was deeper than I expected. I completely hosed the right side of the engine bay. The car stalled, but started again after a minute. It seems I sidestepped hydrolock (thankfully - I have an AEM CAI), because the car runs fine, revs with no problem. It even idles smoothly, once it gets going.

Here's the thing: when I start the car after it's been off for a while (enough for it to cool completely), it catches but stalls immediately. If I hold the throttle open manually, it will run. If I hold it for a minute, it will idle on its own after a little while. I've had no stalling problems once underway.

No codes have been thrown; the CEL isn't on. Everything appears to be tight under the hood. The most I've come up with is cleaning the air filter (it's nasty now) and resetting the ECU. Any further insight is appreciated!

EDIT: new questions below.


Modified by Regular Series at 11:56 PM 1/27/2005

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Regular Series &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">... The most I've come up with is cleaning the air filter (it's nasty now) and resetting the ECU...</TD></TR></TABLE>Those are good, painless, things to start with. Does that mean you've already done them & ruled that stuff out?

Then look for arcing at your distributor cap & wires, when cold-starting in the dark. When water splashed on the cap, arcing along the surface can etch it so it's easy to arc with simple cold & humidity.

 

Well, I tried to clean the filter, but the freakin' thing is frozen solid on the pipe (it's been especially cold recently). I tried resetting the ECU to no avail.

I had a guy at AutoZone plug in the OBD II reader just to double check. No codes. I bought some drygas just in case. Next step'll be checking the distributor and rotor. They're just cheap-o replacements I threw on last year; I may just pony up for some OEM Honda components if I need to replace them.

 

good luck with ur problem, i'm also from maine and know just how cold it has been lately (-10F WITHOUT the wind chill this morning when i went to work)...

caused the need for a new thermostat the other day for myself...

if intake is that frozen, could it be frozen solid? shitty air flow, especially at start up (extra cold), causing the stall? i'm no expert, but it IS just that cold.

 

I was wondering that myself. There could be just a bit of restriction for which the ECU cannot compensate. Troubleshooting a car in this cold is a bitch tho.

EDIT: "Frozen" might be the wrong word. The rubber sleeve on the filter is so stiff that I can't work it off the pipe. Nonetheless, there may be an obstruction. The car jumps to redline with no trouble, however.

 

It could be it has nothing to do with your puddle incident, making it coinsidence.......I had a teg once do this to me, and it was the fuel pump going bad.

 

I wondered about that. It seems to be fine now, although it starts a bit slow. It is very cold still.

I wonder if the battery isn't dying off...it is almost seven years old.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Regular Series &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">... Nonetheless, there may be an obstruction. The car jumps to redline with no trouble, however.</TD></TR></TABLE>If there were an obstruction, it would have trouble. Especially accelerating under load.

 

Hum. The sluggish starting is back again. It's been so friggen cold lately I'm not sure if it's related more to my little incident or the cold. The cold's never been a problem before, but the car is getting older too.

So, a mildly stupid question: Could there be "concealed damage"? If the car is fine other than hard starting, could there still be damaged engine components?

 

Did you ever check for arcing on the cap or plug wires?

 

No, but cleaning the filter and restting the ECU seems to have resolved it. You should have seen the bottom of my tub when I rinsed the filter out....