So last week I took my integra to the car wash and washed the engine with degreaser and the water sprayer. Went to started it up and was knockin and boggin down. Come to find out I somehow got water in the spark plug wells. I don't want to do too much with it and screw it up worse. Last time I started it, it started right up but still has knocking and is semi boggy not as bad though. I let it run for a while to evaporate the water but looked under the car and the cat was glowing orange, I'm guessing thats most likely from the unburned fuel shootin down the exhaust. I'm at wits end at the moment. I need my baby to run again. Any help would be appreciated!

 

well i would start by pulling the distributor cap off and making sure it is 100% dry inside. then pull all your wires off and make sure it is dry in the ports. then i would pull your plugs out and replace them. since the wires were arcing i would guess that your plugs are fuel fouled and would replcae

 

distributor is clean, wires are good, haven't tried replacing plugs yet though... I'm afraid of taking them out and have all that water run into the cylinders. Wouldn't that be a bad thing?

 

well how much water is still in the tubes? if any start by blowing it all out with some type of compressed air or taking a towel and shoving it in the tube with a screwdriver

 

enough that if you leave the car running for a while and take the wires out you can see it boiling. Its not all the way up the well but maybe a good inch or so. I'll go see if I have something long enough to shove down there.

 

yes i wouldnt keep running the car with it missing espically enough to turn the cat red. raw fuel will clog up a cat in a hurry. i wouldnt start it again until it is all dry with new plugs.

 

ok cool... Im gonna work on gettin out the water now, and my husband is heading to autozone. I have my laptop outside so I'll keep updates.

 

well 1 has a little bit of water, 2 and 3 are dry, and 4 has the most... It's obviously significantly dried up in the last week. I'm gonna bring my blow drier out and see what I can do.

 

ok.. did your check engine light come on at all?

 

So I got out as much water as possible, took out the spark plugs, tried to crank the engine just in case there was any water in there (nothing), put new plugs in, went ahead and got new wires, cranked her and she purrs. It even semi fixed the idle problem I had been having. Thanks

 

It comes on off and on anyway but it would come on when you'd try to drive it.

Oh and once I got her running let her sit for a while to make sure the cat was ok, went back to check and it wasn't glowing red so I'm guessing it was probably just all the unburned fuel down there.

 

so did you get it all dried up? how is it running now?