FACT or FICTION: Water in CAI

[Equinox]

I live in Texas, and two days after I bought my Cold Air Intake, I'm out driving at night. Well what do you think happens? It rains. Mitch of Protege5Online.com tried to sell me an AEM bypass with my Injen CAI I bought from him, I figured he's just trying to make the money of course. Well as it's raining, you've got 95% of water not getting in your CAI. I figured the stock tire well plastic trim would block all water splashing that I needed, and I wont have to have a AEM bypass. WRONG. I'm driving down a one way street in the left lane, and my car pulls to the right and I hear "fwooosh"... which means I just drove through a 2" puddle of water sitting next to the curb. Scared the hell out of me because the CAI is on the left side of the car. Well about half a minute later I hear my engine give a high pitched whine and I could feel the loss of power from 1 of my cylinders not firing. The whine stopped right then and there, and the power loss did too, but sure enough, I had water in my damn engine - that night I ordered the AEM bypass from Mitch. btw MITCH, my bypass hasn't come in yet, it has been 2 weeks or more. =P

Reagen

 

[sttl013]

It doesn't sound like you got water in your engine. If you had gotten water in the intake (enough to set off a bypass valve) then you wouldn't have gotten ANY power back, and probably would have towed your car home the rest of the way.
SCC did an article on this, when reviewing that very same AEM bypass. Water doesn't burn, so when it enters the engine thru the intake, it takes up space inside the combustion chamber. This is bad, because the more water in there, the higher it drives the compression ratio. So, dunking a filter in water (driving thru a puddle big enough) would pull in enough water to raise the compression to astronomical values and destroy the motor.
If you wrote that right and it was a 2 inch puddle, I really doubt it was water in the motor. If you meant 2 feet, then count yourself VERY lucky and put on that bypass today.
By the way, that one cylinder not firing could have been wet electronics, like one plug not firing. Just a thought.

 

[Sir Nuke]

Equinox, I know if the Texas downpours...I live southwest of houston.....and having an Injen CAI and KNOWing where its at....you certainly experienced something other than water in your engine...as sttl013 explained...had you gotten enough in there to make a cylinder go dead...you would have certainly blown the head gasket out at a minimum....maybe worse. not to mention since your car was moving...as your tire hit that puddle the water was displaced...and it DID NOT go into your wheel well....at least not where your intake filter is....you would have had to submerge the front of the car to do that....... something else went dead in that instant that you went through that puddle...but you didn't get water in your engine.

 

[PRO5YELLOW]

Re:

Beware!!!
I have the Bypass, too......just better still beware of puddles!!!
Don't risk it, since I am living in Vancouver....It rains everyday from winter to spring......u luck bud!!!
Off topic.....how often should I clean my the filter????
Every 4000?

 

[Equinox]

check every oil change, but more commonly change it every other

 

[HurricaneP5]

I've been running intakes and CAI for years now in several different cars and this is the first time I've heard anyone trying to sell a bypass-valve, so I'm not so sure. Do you realize how much water would have to be there to penetrate your filter, and make it all the way up that long intake pipe? I've had two Injen CAI's, a few Iceman CAI's on various car and I've never had a single water problem....but maybe I've been just lucky....who's to say...

 

[sundevilMP5]

i'm with hurricane...i've run an AEM cai and so have a lot of my friends...never had a water problem...just realize that water in the intake is inevitable...but it's not going to hurt your engine unless you submerge it...

super street did an article on this a while back...they were testing the AEM bypass valve on the guy's NSX...they had to completely submerge the filter before the bypass valve kicked in...so...

just a word to the wise...don't drive through any flooded streets with foot deep water...common sense people