A while back I was deliverin pizzas as a summer job before college, and one day it was raining very hard and water got up my CAI and locked my motor. I got it towed home and the following day I pulled the plugs and turned it over. It was after I heard the foreboding knock of a rod that I knew that I would be replacing the motor for a second time this year...

I tore off the oil pan and found this:





I could see it from under the car, but after pullin everything out and pullin the head, I was able to get good pics of the ownage:



It is obvious that enough water got sucked up there to sieze the motor, snapping a rod straight in half and knocking holes in both sides of the block. I then began disassembling everything, preparing for the motor to be removed, since I couldn't afford sending it off to a shop again, and I have been meaning to do some heavy work on an import. I started by removing the bigger things:



Uh oh, what are those metal chips from?



Doh!

Well, I learned a lesson out of it all; if you're gonna use a CAI, keep your inner fender plastic there, and replace it if it gets ripped out. Also, an AEM valve may be useful if the weather's bad...

Next time on Hydrolock Mayhem:



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???

 

damn, thats a great piece of work you did!!!!

 

damn, how'd you bust #1.. usually the most water getts into #4.......

high quality ****** up ****

 

ouch, sorry to see this.... maybe with a little of jb weld you can fix that

 

ouch!

thank god i got a bypass valve.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Phast Life &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
thank god i got a bypass valve.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I'd be careful even with the bypass valve.................I'm not even gonna start this discussion.....

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by luder94si &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

I'd be careful even with the bypass valve.................I'm not even gonna start this discussion.....</TD></TR></TABLE>

You just did.......but regardless just try to avoid not running over floods bypass valve or not.

 

just buy and old crappy truck to drive in bad weather and to work every day. that's what I did hehe.

Old Nissan pick up cost me 2K and has been running for 3 years now.

 

Funny thing was that it didn't flood the entire filter. I got into a heated debate on another board about bypass filters, and how you can only hydrolock if you submerge the entire filter, but I just got some heavy spray on mine, and it just sucked a LOT of water and siezed. All cylinders were full up into the runners with water, and I had to drain it all out...I didn't really get why #1 snapped.

Even though it sucks now, something good's gonna come out of it

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 57STS &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">just buy and old crappy truck to drive in bad weather and to work every day. that's what I did hehe.

Old Nissan pick up cost me 2K and has been running for 3 years now. </TD></TR></TABLE>

I'm about to get my old VW Beetle running again.....woohoo! At least I'll have the experience of driving my Bug again.....

 

Sorry I know this is an old post but I also did not have the wheel lining with a CAR and one day when it was raining real hard my car started to sputter and then instead of being smart to pull over i tried to get to the parking lot that i needed to go. it was maybe 50 feet away. it was a left turn and i had cars behind me and my car just would'nt go. i gave it a lil more gas and it started to move and i looked back and there was tons of white smoke.. obviously burning water. I parked in a spot and let it idle for like 5-10 mins and everything seems fine. i went to watch the movie and came back out and the car started right back up and it drove fine since then. I think i might of gotten lucky cause of a good ignition system that i have.. Iridium + MSD. Plus my questions is.. for a smaller water sucking incidents like this. will this kill my compression?

I did a rebuild a while ago and this basically happened after the bottomend rebuild. right nwo i am doing LS/V i guess i'll have to wait to see if my compression numbers were the same as before. I did a compression test before the water sucking = 190 - 200 all around. The thing is that we took the head off and everything looks to be in good shape except 2 scratches on cylinder 2. The other guys working on my car said everything looks pretty good.

This also has happened before the bottom end rebuild and it kept on running afterwards.

 

do a compression test. It could bend a rod slightly, and you wouldn't be able to feel it just by driving. I believe that i have sucked water on a few other occasions, causing the motor to sputter, but I just didn't think of it being hydrolock at the time.

If it did slightly bend a rod, you will have uneven power output and things will be slightly out of balance; something you DON'T want on a car that's made to rev out!

 

More fun with trying to compress water:

 

I know how you feel man....My motor look similar to that whenever I hydrolocked mine. Broken rod, pieces of the block in the oil pan, big hole in the block

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by flyrod &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">More fun with trying to compress water:

</TD></TR></TABLE>

I've got another rod from the same motor that looks just like that!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by LudeyKrus &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">...keep your inner fender plastic there, and replace it if it gets ripped out...</TD></TR></TABLE>I know this happened to you awhile ago now but I think this had more to do with it than anything else. I have driven in pretty bad downpours on numerous occasions and never had a problem and I do not have a bypass valve. I could just be lucky though.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by LudeyKrus &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Funny thing was that it didn't flood the entire filter. I got into a heated debate on another board about bypass filters, and how you can only hydrolock if you submerge the entire filter, but I just got some heavy spray on mine, and it just sucked a LOT of water and siezed. All cylinders were full up into the runners with water, and I had to drain it all out...I didn't really get why #1 snapped.

Even though it sucks now, something good's gonna come out of it </TD></TR></TABLE>
Heavy Spray???

 

i am never gonna use a cia damn that is some scary ****!

 

heavy spray .. comes from not having a inner wheel well basically when the tires turns it spray the water all over the place causing the filter to be soaked with water. i think i am goign to stick with the short version of my AEM now too.. thx for the info.. since i got auto i won't be revving too high.. and i got ARP rod bolts.. hopefully it'll help.

 

yeah; when you don't have an inner fender plastic piece, you can really hear how much water is getting kicked up by your wheel. Apparently a LOT of water was getting sprayed onto the filter, cause I know the water wasn't high enough to submerge it.

Also, I don't wanna scare anyone w/ this; I am sure that if I had replaced my fender plastic when it got ripped out, this wouldn't have happened.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by LudeyKrus &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">...I am sure that if I had replaced my fender plastic when it got ripped out, this wouldn't have happened.</TD></TR></TABLE>I agree.

 

were u in high revs when this happened? cause honestly my car sputtered and i had to pull over a couple of times when it was raining. but i have not seen heard felt any damage. what exactly cauese the rod to bend? does the crank get stuck or does it actually try to compress a lot of water and that it can't so it bends.. i mean we are taking about the cylinder at least half way filled up for something like this to happen though.

 

A rod will bend or break during hydrolock b/c the water fills up the cylinders a good bit; since water doesn't compress, when the crank tries to push the piston back up into the cylinder, the water won't let it.....so the rod has to give.

I would say I was around 3k when it happened.

 

Maybe I have just been lucky but I have been driving around for 1.5 years with my CAI with no bypass valve and no inner fender liner.

When I get a real motor that will change though

 

I understand that LudeyKrus was just lazy about replacing his fender splash guard but why in the hell would you go a year and a half without one, that's just stupid.