Yesterday My GF was driving her 98 GSR to my house in heavy rain. She comes in the house saying that her car stalled after driving in a deep puddle of rain. I come out side and listen to it idel. It's missing and there is a loud taping sound coming from the engine. I pull it into my Garage and do a compression check. 130-190-190-190. Looks like # 1 took the damage. I am guessing it's a bent rod. Anyone else ever get hydrolock damage? What part of the engine was damaged?
How is insurance on somthing like this?


to me for putting a CAI on my GF car.

 

Shoulda gone with a short ram. If you are gonna rebuild it, I have stock GSR rods, with cracked pistons mounted on them. The rods are in good condition. PM me if you want them.

 

It hasnt happend to me (yet) I hope it never does, but I would also like to know what happens after h2o gets in the CAI? I just installed my AEM CAI a couple of weeks ago. I thought I needed a bypass valve? But some were saying no b/c its a one piece . I work at insurance and insurance does not cover any mechanical problems BUT you can always try it as "water damage" ,but they may say that the car didn't come like that from the factory and thats that.(unless you have extra coverage for specific parts) It wouldn't hurt to try. Good luck

 

if you can try to say something but have an arguement against it, why bother saying in the first instance?



Good that you did a compression test to isolate the problem.

Just some work ahead but nothing unsalvagable. If she will run with a CAI, just advise her to avoid puddles at best. Otherwise install the stock box back.

 

get the bypass valve.

i've checked it out, and it's actually pretty novel. it'll work for puddles and stuff. it won't work if the filter is completely submerged and you rev it, though.

 

^ whats true is the exact opposite of what you say, the bypass valve will only work if the filter is totally submerged, and pressure is lost.

 

To this day, I dont now why people install CAI without a bypass valve. Ruining the engine is NOT fun and definitley not worth it for a mere 5+ HP increase.
You can safely use a CAI with bypass valve which doesnt cost more than $30 from AEM.

That's why I am not going to get the AEM V2 since the bypass valve does not work with it.

 

yes, but the bypass valve doesnt work unless you totally submerge the filter, and who encounters puddles that big and drives through them? I have had a v2 for 1.5 years, and havent had a problem to this day, and it rains like hell here in iowa during the spring/summer.

 

The CAI was on the car for aleast 2 years now. I knew the slight dangers of it but I didn't think there would be any area's of standing water that the car would be driven through. We got over 1 inch of rain last night form a small local thunderstorm so there must have been a lot of water in the road.

I am thinking either rebuild the motor I got with just replacing the stock rod and putting new rings in while I have it apart or Going with a B20 bottom end. What do they go for? I am pretty sure the block is fine but I don't know till I get it apart. I have a turbo kit that I have been peicing together over the last year but I know forged internals is out of my buget right now.

 

the best prevention of having water getting up into a CAI is to get off the gas when your going over large puddles.

edit: as for damage you probably have some bent valves

 

you should do a search.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by bigblizz49 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">you should do a search.</TD></TR></TABLE>

And you should post something worth a damn.

Anyways, I had an eBay CAI on my car for a while until I built my motor. The guys at the shop where I had my motor built told me that I should stick with my old short ram over the CAI due to the obvious risks. Switching from the CAI to my old short ram produced no ill effects that I could see.

As for the rebuild, I'd advise you to rebuild the GSR motor to stock trim. If your g/f is the primary driver of the car, it's not a great idea to build a B20Vtec. Reliability isn't up there with a stock motor and judging by the way she drove thru a puddle with the CAI, I doubt she'd know what to do if the B20Vtec began to have problems while driving. Stick with the stock GSR motor rebuild and a short ram

 

put the stock intake back on, sell the CAI and then buy some supertech valves for like $220.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Fuuma0083 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">the best prevention of having water getting up into a CAI is to get off the gas when your going over large puddles.
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Or shut the engine off and coast through the puddle, or take the 30 seconds to stop and pull the intake off the throttle body, or just dont drive through a huge puddle to begin with. It had to be several inches deep at least.

Bottom line, if you dont know what is under the car there is no way you should be drifing through a deep puddle. Its amazing that people know nothing about what parts lurk under their cars and will go driving foolishly through high water.

 

although some say a bypass valve will lose some HP (which im skeptical about this) it IS cheap insurance.. as stated multiple times above, get a bypass valve if you prefer to run a CAI over a short ram intake.

 

buy a comptech icebox, and forget a cai

 

yea i hydrolocked my teggy...bent rod and scuffed up piston and cracked cylinder walls. Mine got covered by insurance thank god. Have a brand new set of gsr pistons and rods for sale from my insurance company sitting at home here if you wanna buy them. I decided to go forged internals

 

I am pretty sure there isn't any valve damage. When an engine hydro-locks the valves are shut. It pretty much has to be a bent rod since the compression is 130 it shows that it's still sealed ok and if the rod is bent it won't make as much compression (de-stroked!! ) lol
I think I will stay clear of a B20 setup did a little research and it's more then I want to get into.

 

b18c1995,

Do you think the V2 is worth getting over the regular one?

 

sorry to hear about your g/f car. what do you drive? is it an 89 civic 1.8t? no really, what color and so forth? i live in manheim, and work close to the city, so i'm around the area a lot. if you need help wrenching let me know. i am knowledgable, but am always learning!!
best of luck!

shawn

 

my car has so many little qwarks that any normal person wouldnt know about IE CAI , lowerd ride hight, ect. i dont let any normal person drive my car. not saying anything bad about your gf im just saying

 

go to pepboys pick up some iso heet and watch it do wonders .

 

oh yea...i also had a bent valve...had to get that **** fixed too

 

She may have gotten lucky and just bent a valve or two, or it could be a bit worse and may be a bent rod. When I hydrolocked my GSR my motor was idling so it pretty much just stalled out the motor. I drained oil and cranked out remaining water, put in new plugs+oil and fired it up. Compression tested 250 245 246 246 afterwards. It has also seen a mis-shift to 9200 rpms once. I hope the shmuck that bought my stolen motor gets shat on by it in the future.

 

comptech icebox pwnz j00.