A friend of mine flooded his intake while driving his car in a pretty bad rainstorm. His car is pretty low and his intake sucked up a bunch of water. I haven't checked it out and don't know the extent of the damage, aside from his car not cranking. What type of damage should i look for, suggestions please.

 

If he sucked in enough water, then he's hydrolocked. Is the car running? Does it even start? Water can be very bad for an engine, especially if it gets in places it shouldn't be. Good luck on that.

 

The fuel vapor injected into the cylinder compresses. Water doesn't (much). Imagine decreasing the stroke of a cylinder to, say, half its normal length WITHOUT, shortening the piston travel. Piston slams into the cylinder ceiling and can't travel any further so the crankshaft stops instantly. If you're lucky. If you're not lucky, the wrist pins might break, the crankshaft might break, the connecting rods might break. You'll also have a lot of fun with the valves, they might be bent.I even heard of one case of hydro-lock where the head was blown clear off the block...

Introducing water into the cylinder does basically the same thing. The level of damage will be somewhat proportional to the amount of water ingested, but it won't be fun no matter how you cut it.

You're gonna have to open up the engine, pull the head off, get rid of all the water and then look for broken or bent drivetrain or valvetrain parts.

Let us know what you see!

 

thats sucks.. same thing happen to me like a year ago on a bad rainstorm.. i had water halfway up the doors and my car sucked in water threw the intake ..... and the car wolnd't rev over 3,000rpm and the engine was responding all slow ... it shaked, but what i did was keep it in my garage and used a good blowe dryer and cleaned out the stock intake.. let it sit... and then i had to take it to a mechanic..to put a gas filter, distribuator cap, airfilter, spark plugs, spark wires, airfilter, and that was about it and my car was riding in good shape... i also had water on the carpets which sucks becuase it leaves a nasty smell for like 3 weeks... that sucks man.. good luck ... so if u have water under the seats.. u have to get like a shop vac and suck it all up...

 

just pull out the spark plugs and crank that bitch. When the water stops coming out, replace the spark plugs and start it up. Run it for a while (if it runs). If it runs like ****- you probably bent a rod when cranking it when it was hydrolocked. That's when you tear it apart. I hydrolocked my rex, cleared it out, and it was fine.

 

same ****.....i didn't find out about the plugs till it was too late.

tried push starting it a bunch of times. tried cranking it alot.....bad idea
first thing to do is pull out the spark plugs and crank away....watch the water shoot out the spark plug holes.....and hope you dont see a pool of oil gather beneath your vehicle.

i bent a rod or soemthign and it basically wobled around down there till it punctured the oil pan.