Engine Near catastrophe-EVERYONE W/ CAI MUST READ

Did the exhaust sound louder? Just wondering. Because a buddy i knew that used to be on the last vvti site, used to spray water in his muffler and when he turned it on and revved it, I sounded a hell of alot louder...i think it fucked up his muffler though.

Near catastrophe-EVERYONE W/ CAI MUST READ

ok-most of you know that ive been bragging about my pvc CAI recently-well i now confense to my own stupidity for having a CAI in the first place...the story goes like this:
I was going to work-and it started to rain REAL HARD-i mean-water was collecting on the roads REAL FAST-puddles were forming everywhere- anyway, as im traveling down the road-i go through a little deeper area than normal-almost feels like your gonna hydroplane a little-but not that deep-all of the sudden -my car starts TO VIABRATE REAL BAD, everytime a pushed the pedal-it make a HORRIBLE HUMMING sound-i was like WTF IS GOING ON? so i pull over in a oldsmobile dealership (happend to be right there at the moment) and turn the car off IMMEDIATLY-ive read b/f that if you start cranking-that biatch will bust the rod or piston...so i waited for quite some time for the rain to stop=i believe about an hour...and when i got the filter out of the fender-it was quite wet-but not as wet as i thought-the exhaust pipe has some water deep inside-so water defenitly traveled through the whole system-luckily my dad came to help me-he went to toyota and they said-let the water DRAIN into the bottom of hte crankcase-there it will remain until you change the oil-
SO, I TURN THE CAR BACK ON W/ SRI NOW-(i dried the filter out w/ papertowel-the piping itself wasnt wet-odd) but lots of smoke was comin out of the back-most likely vapor-as it was burning it up-but as i drove more-the smoke went away... I GOT LUCKY! VERY LUCKY!

LONG STORY SHORT-NEVER DRIVE W/ A CAI W/O A BYPASS VALVE OR JUST GO TO SRI=no more CAI FOR ME!

Thanx for the Good pointer...how much is a bypass valve? is 30bucks too much?

50 bucks-but im runnin on a jimmy rigged intake w/ no equal piece - to piece connection...in other words-it wont work on my setup b/c of size variance throught the intake..heres a pic to show you what im talking about.. example pic

i just dont care anymore-NO MORE RISKS FOR ME

i see...i can probably get it on ebay for cheaper

+that almost happened to me and my friend on the way to the track...He had one of those "Extensions" for the SRI to convert it into a CAI, and on the way there it started pourin! We went in to a deep ass puddle-because it was a real bad street filled with holes and shit-and chugged a sh#tload of water through the extension. All of the sudden we felt like this clugclugclug sound and we felt like the car was seriously about to break down. so we stopped at a burger king for about 45min, waited until it calmed down, and took out the extension. We we turned on the car, and it worked fine. and we drove on to the track only to find out it was closed...so all that fuckin hassle for nothin.

well just be glad you got out of that one.. many people arnt as lucky as u

same thing happened to my dad's t-bird during a tropical storm down here (he was on the way back from work when the really bad rain hit) - drove through a puddle that was about 1ft deep (didnt look it) - the tbird's stock air intake is basically a cold-air system - chugged along and when he finally got it running again - he said it blew water about 30 feet out his dual exhaust LOL -

filter location plays a huge role in this situation...

yes it does.

Don't you guys have the filter behind that panel that separates the wheel well from the inner fender? How is water from a puddle gettting in there?

you should just pour water all over your intake so you can bend and eventually snap the rod so you swap engines and have a good time like me.

I haven't had any problems with mine - how deep was this puddle?

lol d samurai, thats what you get. lol jk.

I have to find a picture of how I had my filter, but same thing happend to me, except i pulled over and cranked the water out...it cranked right up, rough idled a little, and then I revved it, and it was fine, and it even ran better....heck it was cooler.

ive got my CAI right in front of my front drivers wheel. where the airbox was. i took that bitch out and the filter is siting right there. im not really concerned about it. i have the bumper, fender and the wheel well sheild protecting the filter from geting 'splashed'. and if my filter were to get submerged in water, the water would be high enough on my car to be leaking through the bottom of my doors. i rember one case it just finished raining and i had to drop someone off. and their road was semi-flooded. and i had my door open, literally, to see how deep my car was goin, and as soon as it hit the bottom of the car, i backed up and wouldnt go anymore, but my CAI was fine. i havnt had a single problem with it

I had my ELP CAI for a couple of years on my '98 and no problems on heavy storms. I think the fender wheel shield protects it a lot in cases like this.

X

If the bottom of your filter is at least a foot of the ground you should be good in every case.

basically what happened was that is pretty much SPLASHED UP alot of water in the fender-theres a hole or two that was there to begin w/-(the fender was never completely sealed b/c thats the way it comes from the factory)but yeah-the exhaust GOT REAL LOUD all of the sudden-vibrating the hell out of the pedal during the injestion and spitting of the water! but i just did an oil change to remove any residual moisture or water that might have been sitting in the crankcase or oil pan. SO I AM GOOD TO GO! thank goodness!

I just purchased a by-pass valve, just dont have a place on my CAI to put it on. Do I have to cut the tube??? or put it by the throttle? 04 corolla

you will have to cut it. Buy or rent a saw with a metal cutting saw disk. Will cut through it like butter. Chop off about 2-3 inches inbetween the place where you want to mount the bypass. Grind off the sharp edges and sand it a bit to get rid of jagged edges. I know the owner of a muffler shop so he'll cut it for me free.

nah dont do it, ill look kinda ghetto. just cut off the long pvc pipe into half and stick the bypass valve there.

would it be too dangerous to place the bypass valve on the throttle body itself? ya know-water should be stopped farther down the tube i guess...

I run an SRI simply because the hp difference from a CAI is only 1-2 hp. Besides, SRI has a faster velocity because of the shorter tube so you keep a hair of your low end power vs a CAI. That and I don't have to worry about water or bypass valves. So why pay more for the added risk for just a fraction of the gains?

And I made up my mind when a buddy of mine hydro locked his car so I am not just being biased. $3000 is too much to spend on a small gain like that. I would rather put it into the TRD SC.

Wise choice. It's not like a CAI frees up 15hp in our car, like in the RSX. I still might do it just to experiment, but unless you're running a built NA 4afe or 7afe, you're probably not going to see much of a measurable performance improvement.

I think is kind of stupid to lower your car with CAI driving in the rain.

3 basic Safty Tips for CAI:
1.Never Drive into the water.
2.Keep off small road(where has ton's water), chioce big open road....
3.Slow down.

Hey, i have the elp CAI and my car is lowered AND i have an aftermarket front bumper. No problems here bub. course it rarely rains in socal.

My filter on my ELP CAI sits about 1.5 feet off the ground.
I have driven in very heavy rain for over an hour on the freeway and in town and have had no problems at all.

I actually have been thinking about modding my intake though.
I figure the air is just about as cool a foot farther up in my weel well as it is at the bottom of it. I was thinking of getting a bypass valve and cutting out about a foot of piping instead of 6 inches so the filter will be about six inches farther from the ground. I figure having the pipe shorter would also improve throttle response.

yep im on my second engine cuz of a CAI and noone who i knew at the time who helped me install it told me about a BYPASS VALVE..

Your lucky