What are the chances of hydrolocking a car if you have a cai? Theres a guy at my school who has a civic that was fast as he$$ but yesterday when it snowed and rained his car hydrolocked. So, if i got the injen intake would this be a very big risk when it rained a lot or snowed a ton?

 

It'd be Dang hard to Hydrolock a tC with a CAI.... You'd have to bury the front bumper pretty deep..... Like 2 feet of water..... Not too likely

 

I agree, I had a CAI on a few Neons that was very low to the ground and never had problems. Basically don't drive through 18 inches of standing water.

 

you have to drive into a RIVER to actually hydro lock... if you are driving in heavy rain that is fine as long as there are no puddles that cover the intake entirely

 

I've got the injen CAI and the drove through 10 hours of heavy rain sunday...no issues at all...

 

I hydrolocked a Jetta.
It doesn't take nearly the amount of water you think.


I'm a HUGE anti-CAI advocate, and I love to get flames from people who think they're invincible. Recently, 3 more people got added to the hydrolock club out of my circle of friends... a specV, a AWD DSM, and an n/a DSM.


Personal experience... You dont need the 3 more whp to take the risk of losing your engine. The design of the CAI on our cars MAY make it more difficult to hydrolock, but are you going to take that chance?

Worst case scenario -- Car hydrolocks. Insurance doesn't pay up, since they find out it was YOUR modification that increased its chances of breaking. Now you're stuck paying a car note for something that needs a new engine, which could cost you up to a few grand depending on availability and misc. parts.

 

With all the CAI's out there, I have yet to see a tC hydrolocked on Scionlife....

You'd have to bury that intake in water to get it to suck up water all that way.... and to bury the intake on a tc, you'd be looking at more than a foot of water.... and somehow it getting past the wheel well insert and into that small area inside...

There are much bigger things to worry about.... like the million idiots out there that drive like phychos...

 

depends on the intake mine is prone to hydro lock i took my filter off a coulple of days ago and it was very damp so im switching to short intake new week hope fully we dont get mutch snow till then

 

for hydro lock...

you have to have the whole filter submerged under water.

sport compact car magazine did a test on this. intakes dont suck up water until the filter is complete under water

how did they know? he used an AEM bypass valve

 

thats why i have the ram air kit that i can put the block on for the winter...gotta love it

 

I live in south florida and i have a kn CAI through the million hurricanes that have come through i have not had any problems you honestly would have to go out and try to hydrolock... i know someone who is slammed on teins and has one drove right through a puddle and nothing happend maybe we are both lucky but i cant report any hydrolocking

 

well, theres a kid at my school with a civic and he hydrolocked a couple days ago but i was kind of worried about when we had deep snow is there anything i could do to prevent it? i was looking at buying the injen cai would the heat shield prevent it getting wet or anything?

 

but thanks for all the help i was definately pretty nervous about getting one after i heard of this happening i had never heard of this untill a couple days ago

 

If you drive through deep enough water to hydrolock your tC you are going way too fast or through some real deep water. I wouldnt worry about it.

 

how fast is too fast?

 

Minor amounts of water (drops from rain) will NOT cause hydrolocking... I have poured small amounts of cold water INTO an intake to break loose carbon deposits (granted it was an older engine and I knew what I was doing.. dont just go try this ). In order to suck water all the way up the intake, you must submerge it. This is possible... but VERY easilly avoidable. Winter here is no problem at all.... it is too cold Snow and ice only here. Spring showers can cause a lot of water but I have never driven ANY car through water even remotely deep enough to hydrolock a tC (outside of a 4X4 off road). So is it possible? Yes, probable with decent driving and observation? Not very. Add a bypass valve if you are worried. And before anyone speaks of losing power due to sucking air from the engine compartment.. read up on bypass valves, if you are sucking engine compartment air, your intake is submerged, cause that is the amount of vacuum needed. The only drawback is a very minor disruption in the smoothness of the intake walls.

 

just get the bypass valve

 

Im curious, are you implying here that the AWD DSM was turbo? Since you made a point to say n/a for the other one.

 

you wont hydro lock with any thing on the market they filters sit high the only intake i have seen for the tc that can hydro lock would probly be mind witch was a major designe flaw i forgot about when i got happy and started building lol

 

Yup... I'm stating it was turbo.


This is south louisiana. Rains nearly as much as Seattle. Combine that with the fact that 60% of Baton Rouge is classified as a flood zone, and you're gonna lose some turbo cars as well.

However, this DSM is the one guy I dont know personally. He used to be a regular. The other two I do know... Alex's SpecV is up for sale with a rebuilt motor, and Daryl's got a new 420a that he's turbocharging in his garage before dropping it in.