Ok, I will probably be ridiculed for asking this, but hey, chevy's don't have cold air intakes and that's what i've worked on in the past.

If it's raining, then the cold air intake on your car is not supposed to be hooked up while you are driving it. Do you have to take it completely off and put the factory one back on? Wouldn't that get tiring?(especially in the midwest) Or is there just some cover that you put over the filter?

 

I know that some people have had success with covering the exposed filter with like this little bag made for it. I suppose you could also custom make your own box to place your filter in, similar to the stock design, but with the intention being to decrease the chances of water entering the intake system.

If nothing else, then just go ahead and bolt back up the stock system. I know it'd be a pain, but it's better than a messed up engine, plus it really shouldn't take that long to bolt back up.

 

well the design(with most sit inside the bumper) have no problems unless you drive through a deep *** puddle.
You can leave it on when you drive through the rain, just dont take it swimming

 

What do the stock ones do to keep out the problem of water? On my Chevy Nova the filter just sat right on top of the engine, it didn't have any protection from wetness (except for the big engine block sitting underneath it). For some reason though I've heard nasty stories about CAIs being driven in the rain and really screwing things up.

 

Stock setups use a filter in a big air box. You would practically have to have water over your hood like forging a river to submerge the air box.

 

AEM make a bypass filter that goes inline with the intake tube thingy quite high up, so that if the filter gets wet then the air for the motor just flows thro the bypass. I imagine you would loose power if this happened, but its better than a hydrolocked engine.

 

Any Idea how these work or where I could find that info?

 

that bypass valve aem makes it u can try to find info from aems website but i think superstreet ,turbo magazine,or import tuner did an article on that valve wit a cai. wit that valve on it and teh car they used was an nsx. they took the piping and made it externally outside of teh car and filled a box wit water in it and on the end of the piping was the fliter well they ran the engine and sum how that lil valve saved the engine from a hydrolock

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by speed daemon &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Any Idea how these work or where I could find that info?
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It bypasses the main filter by using the smaller foam secondary filter further up in the intake piping. So instead of your engine sucking up water through main filter when it's submerged, it sucks in air from the secondary filter.

 

yeah, but the bypass also takes horsepower away...
cold air box

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by mmuller &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">yeah, but the bypass also takes horsepower away...
cold air box </TD></TR></TABLE>


kinda like the hole/crack in your straw

you suck and suck and you dont get as much drink as before.. basically with the aem filter.. it pulls some air from the bypass area.. it helps because the pull isnt there way under at the end.... so when you do get it wet.. it dont suck in as much water or dont have the chance to suck in as much....

how i see it

 

you might also look into the 2 piece design cold air intake. you can go from cold air to short ram in a few minutes and when raining stops put it back to cold air.
but if your one of those lazy peeps i would suggest aem cai with the bypass valve.
and yes there are a lot of bad stories about cai and im in one of those stories

 

cai short ram works great for me and i love the sound...

 

short ram all the way

 

j's racing short ram &gt; aem cai

any tapered design intake arm is better than a traditional cold air design. i guess it increases air velocity or something? i just know it's dyno proven. my friend has a tapered design intake on his LT1 camaro i think it's made by moroso

-marc

 

my friend had a cai wit the bypasvalve it was working fine for a lil while then we were changing teh filter one day and i saw that a hole was burnt rite through the intake pipe and another one was forming also the bypass valve cracked in half. i personally bought a weaponr dragon intake and that thing works 10x better than the aem and it draws alot more air and increases the speed of the air flowing sum how. my friend ended up buying the same one i have and he ikes that one better that the aem.
the worse thing if seen wit those bypass valves was that it chipped a piece off and went into the throttle and got stuck inside the throttle and the car that it was on was a acura 3.2 cl type s. so when that that piece got stuck it would overrev the eng. when it was at idle or when started up
ill stick wit my short rams. filter stays alot cleaner

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by CodeDawg &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">short ram all the way</TD></TR></TABLE>

Agreed. I'd rather not have to worry about it, plus a lot of short rams have actually made better power than a lot of cold air systems. I have an AEM cai that's actually been sawed off into a short ram but with the filter a bit further out of the way to reduce heat soak. I like it a lot better than the original cai.

 

Thanks for all the help. As a physicist I'm looking for the reason that it does what it does, but of course when it comes to building a car for NSCC and for cruising around a bit, sometimes it'll be rainy and I wanna make sure not to kill me dream car. (If you care I'm still looking for the best chassis, no purchases yet, just reading and learning)

 

if ur driving in really deep puddles just stick with ur stock filter or just drop in a cone type.