hey kids...a sad sad day here in the west coast.

tis' a raining day...and foolish me drove over a puddle with an AEM CAI w/o a bypass valve. the filter was slightly submerged in the water. right after the puddle, the engine had no acceleration to it until i had to reclutch it into first. then it went..but with gurgling and bubbling and slight vigorous shaking...the engine wanted to stall after that and the RPM began to go high, low, high, low...im talking like 2K - 5K, then...4K - 1K....i stopped at a light and revved it to 5K to try to burn out the water...things only got worse after that. the acceleration was almost gone and the car wanted to stall even when i had my foot on the gas. i managed to get it to my friend's house. when i got to my friend's house, the damn thing wouldn't even want to move, this is when it went to shiet when i parked. about 2 hours later, i started the car again and it started fine..but then the idle fluctuated and stalled...the second try, i put my foot on the gas and kept it at 3K rpm...and it STILL stalled...after like 6 tries...the engine light popped on and the damn thing just died....the horrible horrible part is..there was a burnt toast smell all over the cabin and the exhaust was a nasty smell too. i popped the hood only to find a wift of what smelled like "burnt clutch"...but the thing is, i didn't even clutch it.

any insights on what happened and what i should do is greatly appreciated.

is the engine a total loss? can it be repaired for a reasonable price?
anyone know of a cheap towing company in Westwood (UCLA area)??

 

ouch man.. thats gotta suck. thats the only bad part about CAI. gotta be careful.

 

Perform a compression test and you'll have a better idea of what's going on. I doubt it really hydro locked but if it did you could have bent a connecting rod and one or more cylinders will have low compression. Also check the oil dipstick and radiator coolant to look for contamination (oil in the water or vice versa).

 

try starting the car without the MAS hooked up. it will want to idle at 3000 and will dump fuel to keep it there. the water could have just fuct up the sensor.

the rain yesterday was ****ty so i feel you on that. we got 2 in. here on the central coast.

 

Lame dude... good luck with it

 

damn, sux man, the rain here was soooooo bad last night, freakin crazy rain pounded hard through the night, but now, thurs, 8:30 am, it seemed to die out but dunno.

hope you get this fixed, thats why i decided not to cai, that and i have an auto, lol

 

if i change the oil and replace the plugs....will it help??

i also doubt that it was hydrolocked...cuz some ppl told me that the engine would just shut off if it sucked up water into the cylinders. is that true?

 

pull your plugs and smell for gas. leave your plugs out to let whatever is in there evaporate. this could take time. second check your oil for water. and an oil change might be in order.

 

yup.. if it was hydrolocked, it would just shut off. coz it happened to one of my friends and as soon as she drove over a puddle and sucked up water, the car just died right in the middle of the water. she got it fixed, but didnt get the car back till about a month and a half later.

 

so mine isn't 100% hydrolocked cuz i was able to run it for another 3 miles before it crapped out..i called RRM and they said to pull the intake, spark pugs out, dry everything, blow dry the MAS then put everything back. also to blow dry the intake manifold if its wet.

my friend said to pull the plugs out, crank the starter to allow the pistons to pump the water out.

 

I could be wrong, but wouldn't that also risk pumping fuel out of the plug hole? You don;t want to be spitting gas everywhere in the engine bay.

 

it sounds like even if you did hydrolock it's too late, if you would have pulled the plugs right away and died it it might have worked but i think your screwed now

 

well this happened to my friends car. it was a prelude though. wat he did was take out the head drain out the water in the head and do like 2-3 oil changes. he then took off his intake manifold and drained that. then he went to the local auto store and got some kind of water evaporater or something jsut ask them. after that his car was fine. so hopefully urs will be to good luck.

 

not sure what to say. the same thing basically happened to my friends 02 celica. he let off the gas as soon as he heard water being sucked up. drove about 3 blocks, got scared, and shut the car off right away. dried the filter, intake, spark plugs..... everything. tried to start the car and nothing. let the car sit there for a couple days (to dry), came back and nothing, dead. towed it to a family friend that worked at a toyota dealelrship. he said the valve's were basically shot, and they had to rebuild the head (at least thats what he told me). anways i'm not sure how much labor and parts came out to. but i remember it would've been a couple grand if not for the hook up. so yeah i'm not sure what to say........... just giving you an idea.

 

can you install some sort of thing so that if water gets sucked up it wont go all the way into the engine???? i have a AEM CAI on a US lancer...