singleshot

Everytime someone new posts a question about a cai, either they ask or someone will drop the hydro-lock comment in on the thread somewhere.

Does anyone actually personally know someone who's done this? I'm not talking some post on some extreme 4X4 deep water excursions thread on "i'm a red-neck.com", I'm talking personally know someone who's done this?

I was thinking about this the other day and you'd think the amount of water to actually lock the piston or tear the lower end out would have to be an extreme amount of water. To do this you'd think that someone would be traversing a creek crossing or screwing off, playing in some seriously deep puddles.

So here is my question; Does anyone personally know someone(have heard it straight from their mouth) who's hydro-locked their motor during a daily drive when the cai was connected correctly, with no customization done to "enhance" the body or undercarrage to direct air into the filter (by that I mean like louver the underbody panels or taken their foglight cover off to get a direct shot from the front)?

singleshot

TXboxdriver

i work at a dealership service dept (VW)
and we see it every time it rains heavily here
this is with stock vehicles and stock airboxes
it is not hard to do....LIQUIDS DO NOT COMPRESS!!!
when they get pulled into the combustion chamber and that pistons rides up to the head, it basically stops when the water consumes all the space in the chamber
this is way before TDC and the ensuing damage varies
i have seen a rod shaped like an "S"

BE CAREFUL!!!!

siopaojoe

My 3rd engine did it...it was raining too hard to see 3 feet in front of me and I ended up going into an intersection flooded and the front 1/4 of my xB was submerged in water. I think I am the first xB to float in water for about 20ft.

singleshot

I'm sorry, I just can't see it. "way before top dead center", in the rain? let's say we are talking about a 3-1/4" bore, tdc gives you 3/4" of space at the top of the stroke, that area alone will allow 4 ounces of water. Now lets consider the fact that you would need 4 oz. of water sitting in the intake tube waiting for intake valve to open. That would mean you would have needed to take in quite a bit more than that because there are 3 other intake tubes that water can get pulled down.

Now don't get me wrong, i'm not arguing with ya, I'm just trying to understand how it could happen without actually floating your rig... siopaojoe... Now that I can see happening.

hotbox05

if you dont drive through or into puddles it WILL not happen. unless you have a non filtered huge ram air opening.

OneBadBox

While I fully understand hydrolocking, I (like singleshot) want to know more about the xB's issues with it.

It seems unlikely that Toyota would design a vehicle that couldn't be driven in heavy rain.

I personally have ridden in a ford escort with water blocking out the headlight beams (psycho girlfriend driving), driven a new beetle with the turn signals under water and probably a couple of others in at least a foot of water without issue.

this doesn't include several various off-roader jeeps and trucks, nor the 1965 Beetle that i drove about 25 mph into a lake 6 feet deep. Water entered the engine but it didn't hydro lock, it just stalled. I think having a zillion miles and needing a rebuild is what saved it.

So how is it the xB can't take it?

Driver_Lost

Some what related. I sold a new VW Golf to a lady traveling cross country in her 84 Rabbit diesel. She would stop every 3000 miles at any quick oil change place to have the oil changed.
Well, Billy-Bob in the pit never drained the oil, and Bobby-Joe up top put about 5 more qts of oil in.
Miss Never forget an oil change got about 20 miles when the engine locked up.
I think the only thing keeping the head on was because it was a diesel, and it could take the psi.
The sad part is, the mechanic figured this all out after she left with the new car.
He pulled the glow plugs and it launched engine oil on the 14 foot ceiling in the shop. Draind some oil, and the car was good to go again.

I don't think a gas engine could be so lucky.

hunterUnknown

iTrader: (1)

i know someone who has hydrolocked and needless to say had to get a new engine. 200sx. CAI naturally. the other day it was raining heavily here and im just driving casually. then i go into some puddles. and a minute later i realize OH YEAH I HAVE A CAI. nothing happened. nothing will happen unless the filter is pretty much submerged anyway.

TXboxdriver

are you forgetting that there is already air and fuel waiting to get in there too
and i do not know where the 3/4" came from, but total volume is probably less than the 4oz. you mentioned
i don't know for sure, have not cared to analyze my engine
i just drive (Injen SRI) and be happy with my 30mpg, CAI's are a death wish!

hotbox05

cai's a death wish. lol.

just dont drive thru puddles people.

TheScionicMan

You also need to look at the regions people are from. I'm guessing Texas gets a lot more rain than we do here in Cali.

I've never heard of hydro-locking occuring when there wasn't a puddle or flooding involved. Never heard of it happening just based on rainfall/roadsplash, etc.

Saw it happen on 2 wranglers when I worked at a Jeep dealership. Both were crossing creeks and pushed the water over the hood. When cyl #1 hits that water, it would snap the rod and the broken rod tore a gash thru the oilpan.

Joe drivin' the AmphiBox - I wish I coulda seen that!

singleshot

Amphibox, now that is funny.... lol... Like the old theory of the "floating vw bug".

the 4 oz, was just a guest-a-mate. and no, i'm not forgetting the air-fuel mixture. I'm just assuming that in order to hydrolock a motor, the amount fluid needed would displace the air-fuel mixture sitting on top of the intake valve. I'm not doubting you in the least in the fact that you see it. But I'm wondering if these folks have literally submerged their motor and or purposely done it for insurance replacement. I'm guessing here, so don't take that the wrong way.

My "amounts" were for a tangable # that I could grasp. A lot, or doesn't take much, doesn't give me anything to go on. It's been years since i pulled the heads on my 383, so I don't remember the total volume at tdc. To be totally honest, I've never pulled the head on a 4 cylinder to cc it....

I've got an old (1980 something) fuel injected isuzu impulse motor down in the shop, I can dump water in until it spews out the spark plug hole. That will give me an idea of the amount of water needed. I'll take a measureing cup down and get a general idea of the amount that it took....

singleshot

RBOX

COLD AIR INSTAKE AND WATER AND ENGINE DONT MIX ALL TOGETHER...

Tomas

Keep in mind too, that it can be a collection of water - a little at a time - in a low-spot in the intake path. Then, when one least expects it, one tips the intake system one way or another and the slowly collected water is all suddenly dumped into the next cylinder to try to suck air.

*WHAM!*

It happens...

Oil and little crunchie car parts all over the road.

hotbox05

just get an intake like mine. the air path goes like an l so.... the air gets pulled upwards. so unless i drive through a 2 foot puddle nothing will happen. i have the aftermarket aem "L" pipe intake.

chucksu

Im not going to say this is any where near right, just a ball park guess..

1NZ-FE engine has a bore=75mm & stroke=84.7mm. So total volume of 1 cylinder is about 375cc. Now thats at BDC. So at say 3/4 of that, you would have about 93.75cc of space left. So now add in air getting compressed, the water & fuel & I dont see it taking much. Also maybe the water does not need to be a great deal, if there is enough when the spark plug tries to fire, the expansion could be much greater then what the engine was built for, if any explosion of the fuel would happen with the water there.. It is a good question & would be interesting to see real world tests of how much water it takes..

Tomas

With a total capacity of 375cc in each cylinder, and a 10.5:1 compression ratio, that SHOULD mean that at TDC the capacity of a cylinder is about 35.7cc, or about 1.2 ounces...

Even just reducing the volume by half (by tossing in 0.6 ounce of water) will push the compression ratio to over 20:1 which I'm sure exceeds the design limits for assorted parts and is likely enough pressure to cause compression ignition of the fuel charge (a la diesel) ahead of TDC. Add to that the extreme pressures created by steam if the fuel/air mix above the water in the cylinder DOES fire, and you can bend or break things...

Again, if the intake run can hold even a small amount of collected water until it is tipped, or if the intake is mounted low and gets below a source of water, the engine will TRY to act like a little wet-or-dry vacuum and suck it in. When that happens, the first cylinder to get enough of a load of water will lock the engine.

(I was surprised that it would take so little, but then these are tiny engines - about the displacement of the air conditioner I had in my old Chrysler... )

OneBadBox

I just realized this thread is about hydrolock with a CAI, not necessarily a stock xB.

George

Think of it another way. Consider the engine running at 2000RPM. That means that it inhales 1.5*2000 or about 3000 liters of air per minute. This is 50 liters per second! Assuming a 10:1 compression ratio, you'd have to put 5 liters of water per second into the intake to get enough incompressable water in the cylinder to fill the combustion chambers at TDC. Not even the heaviest of downpours will put that much water into the intake. The engine would die long before this would occur.

The only way you can hydrolock an engine is to somehow make it inhale pure water, either by dipping the intake into water or by letting water collect in a low bend in the system and get pulled in as a single gulp.

Back in the olde dayes, we would "decarbonize" engines by pouring water into the carburator with the engine running. We'd hold the throttle open and regulate the speed of the engine by how fast we poured the water. You could get a gallon of water through an engine in less than a minute and the engines didn't hydrolock. If we poured the water any faster, the engine would just die from lack of combustion.

Bottom line: If you get a CAI, don't drive through deep puddles!

George

Tomas

Yeah, the stock layout of the intake is pretty safe if it's not somehow broken.

Putting the inlet 6 inches from ground level, or having an intake path with places that can collect water for later ingestion can be bad.