I'm with blue2000s. The only stories anyone's ever told me about hydrolocked engines were ones they read online or a friend who knew a guy who knew someone... Seems this is no different. In a decade and a half in the car scene, I've not known a single person to do it... and I've known a lot of people with riced out Civics who did some really dumb crap.

You may not need to ingest much water to hydrolock, but the filter does have to be mostly submerged for the engine to actually draw any water in at all (the straw example is spot on). And if you're driving your car in water that deep, you almost deserve to hydrolock. I don't drive my Vantage in standing water.

Regarding oil: just make sure you don't apply so much oil that the filter is saturated a half hour after applying it. If you apply too much, rinse it off and re-apply with less.

With that said. I'd leave the boxes on simply because exposing them in their location would cause them to foul way more often. I'd doubt any power differences are noticeable, but I'd definitely notice having to clean the filters twice as often.

And I did not notice a difference in sound by going with K&N filters (with the boxes installed).

 

Well, golly, since you've never seen it, I'll tell my friends that their cars really weren't damaged. How silly of them to fall for that old trick.

Obviously the chances of hydrolocking are small. But not impossible. Do you personally know anyone who has been struck by lightning? No? So do you think it never happens? (hmmm, someone I see almost every day was hit by lightning last year, and two others who have hydrolocked due to open element intakes behind the bumper, one a BMW 323 in 2002 and one a BMW 328 in 2005. Maybe I shouldn't stand too close to them! or is it me?)

Like I said, I needed a good chuckle tonight. And now I've had two! Thanks and Good Night!

 

Never said it was impossible. But if you want to go through life never going outside because you're afraid of being struck by lightning, enjoy.

The difference here is that I understand probability. And I still maintain that you'd have to be quite reckless to actually have it happen. Don't drive in standing water more than a couple inches deep and you'll never have to worry about hydrolocking.

 

Back to this lol...

I've seen a hydrolocked engine first-hand.

Not gonna rehash the cloth-vs-paper filter thing again... did the video, chatted with a number of people that messaged/emailed me about it, moved on.

I brought up removing the air boxes while chatting with a Master Tech yesterday. He looked at me like I was crazy. He said water is definitely a concern - the engine could stall out without the filter being completely submerged, and even more concerning is mice eating through the filter and getting into the intake system. He's found mice in air boxes before, so removing that layer of protection is something he thinks is very risky.

 

OMG Rich you're LYING!!!! LOL

 

I wish I was! I'd love to get rid of the air boxes (and still might do that on the grey car since I have the red car to drive in crappy weather if needed). But he wasn't supportive of the idea. At all.

 

Mice eating through the filter is a scary problem. Again, I didn't advocate removing the boxes. I just said that the fear of hydrolocking is overblown.

Jeff_335i--sorry you're so butthurt. Would you like me to recommend someone to talk to about getting upset over having people disagree with you?

 

I really hate to belabor this point, and I hesitated to respond, but here we go. Rich, I respect your opinion and appreciate your effort for the community. I'm not a master technician, but I am a mechanical engineer with a masters degree in fluid flow and have been working in that capacity for about 20 years, so I do have some knowledge on this subject.

If the intake is near but not submerged in water, some water will be picked up due to the low pressure of the air moving along the water's surface. The closer the intake is to the water, the more it will pick up. However, in this situation there is no chance of picking up enough water, keeping it in suspension through the intake and throttle, to cause hydrolock. It's NOT going to happen.


Added clarification: I want to also make sure it's clear that the wake of water that builds up in front of the car as it moves through standing water can be enough to engulf the intake in water, which will cause the engine to ingest a dangerous amount of water. Having said that, this situation is an equal risk to the filter in a box.

 

And I appreciate that input, which is why I'm still considering doing this to my grey car

 

And God do they ever run good with a little water in the air. Makes me smile every time.

 

not to beat a dead horse... but. gimme the bat.

I've come close to hydrolocking my VW R32 in just heavy rain, with a cone filter that sits behind the lower drivers side grille. car stuttered stuttered, misfiring, and wouldn't accelerate. instantly turned it off, and pulled over. maybe it evaporated, in the hot cylinders..? because 10 minutes later it was fine.


That happened 2 separate times, which after that point I bought an AEM dry-flow sock, kind of a very very fine poly mesh sock that fit over the filter. Never another issue.


Back on subject, doesn't everyone here just run the fancy RSC air filters and move on with their lives..?

 

That wasn't hydrolocking. But the water was likely causing the car to choke a bit (it certainly impacts airflow, essential to the engine running right), which is why the dryflow filter helped.

P.S. If you think your car is ingesting water, accelerating is the absolute worst thing you can do--that increases intake airflow velocity, which will cause the car to ingest more water. It also increases piston velocity, which makes it more likely to snap a rod if you were to ingest enough water to hydrolock. Best to let the car stall out in your instance. If it didn't hydrolock, the engine stalling will prevent it from pulling in any additional water; and if it did hydrolock, you might get away with just pulling the spark plug and sucking the water out to get it running again. This is also why I say you'd have to be a real idiot to hydrolock... it's not like you couldn't see it coming, as you drive into water WAY too deep for your car and then floor it for some reason. lol

I didn't do the RSC filters, but I did get the K&N equivalents.

 

Yeah I didn't snap anything. And I didn't try accelerating, I was just driving (through a crazy South Carolina rain storm) and all of a sudden it fell on its face. no puddles, so it wasn't like I immediately thought I locked it up, but the second time it did it a few months later (in heavy rain, again) I realized what had definitely caused it.


oh well. live and learn, I was young and relatively new to cars back then. thankfully nothing drastic/expensive happened.

 

This is direct line of sight?

chr

 

Yes, just behind a mesh bumper grille, inset in and up maybe a few inches.