high temperature + low temperature (in a seconds time) = cracked block?

Anybody know what’s the temperature a block can actually crack at? From extermly high to extremely low in a split second. Heard some stories of people who ran their cars and got a car wash and block cracked.

 

so when they got their car washed they poped open the hood?!!! Sounds crazy.

You can damage a motor by adding cold water to a cooling system if its empty and the engine in hot. You risk warping the head and block, possibly rapidly cooling a certain area causing a crack to form I suppose, but I dont know about a car wash.

 

i don't know of any cases like that myself, but my friend has a prelude that he likes driving hard no matter what time of day it is. from where we lived, it was 3 minutes to the freeway on ramp. every day, he goes from the pad to the freeway, and as soon as he gets on, he holds the gas down until 120mph. that was his habit until the head cracked. this was in alaska where the temps go from -20 to 120.

 

i washed my engine bay almost right after i let it idle for a bit... there was some smoke comming out of my block. i don't know if it was a drastic termperature change enough to hurt/warp anything.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by idriveadelsol7 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">i washed my engine bay almost right after i let it idle for a bit... there was some smoke comming out of my block. i don't know if it was a drastic termperature change enough to hurt/warp anything.</TD></TR></TABLE>

It's just steam, no big deal. I wash my engine quite a bit, and as long as it isn't full hot, you should be fine. If you cracked or warped something, you would know by now.