your engine sucks up water?

I was driving home late last night in a total downpour and managed to get caught in a gigantic puddle(more like a lake) on the highway. This was the Belt Parkway eastbound in Brooklyn for you NY'ers.

I have an Injen CAI installed in my car. My Fit became sluggish after clearing the body of water and an orange blinking engine icon flashed right above the tach every time I pressed the throttle to accellerate. My car seemed to operate normally again after a minute or so. I couldn't stop to check WTF happened on the highway and continued the rest of my 55 mile commute back home at about 60 mph.

Fast forward to this morning - I start up my car and there seems to be a clicking noise that wasn't there before at idle.

 

Well the dangerous thing about large puddles and CAI's is the chance of hydrolock. I don't think your engine sucked up that much water as your Fit would have died on you. How deep was this puddle? Not sure if the engine light is because of water sucked up or whatever else it could be, but if it is making funny sounds, maybe take it into the dealer? I know you can get bypass sections for CAI's to prevent water from getting into the engine as it gives the intake a secondary source of fresh air closer to the engine, not sure if the application will fit on our Fit's...

 

Thats the problem with cold intakes 'nothing happened you sucked up some water and miss fired your engine and luckly it cleared out .if you flooded the engine it would have locked and shut down .thats why its not worth installing .and if you brought it to the dealer it would not be cover under warrenty. water damage is useally never covered unlease its a defect which this isnt

 

True...I would just re-install the factory intake and be like WTF!!

 

the clicking noise is completely normal and has been discussed before... it is the evap purge sensor that goes to the cansister for smog purposes... its always been there you just noticed it clicking and now it seems like you hear it all the time... its normal... all in your head trust me. do a test, disconnect this while the car is idleing :


i bet you the clicking will be gone, you will also get a CEL.. haha but its just a test. you can always reset the ECU hope this solves tha problem.

 

Thanks for the info 805!

Just to be safe I scheduled an oil change (need one anyway) with my local Honda dealership.

By the way that puddle was DEEP and I hit it at about 60 mph, the driverside front bumper, under the headlight, right by the wheelwell actually pushed out! I snapped it back into place.

 

well in order for hydrolock to happen you have to have the actual filter completely submerged in water. i highly doubt that could have happened at 60 MPH, so you should be in good shape.

 

We had hydrolock on our 1999 Saab 9-3. My wife stopped for a red light in deep water, and the CAI allowed the water to be sucked into the engine. The turbo did a great job sucking up the water!!!!

We had to have the engine rebuilt. The shop said the turbo, intercooler, and all the pistons were completely filled with water! Soon thereafter we traded in the car.

Needless to say, we don't own CAIs anymore.

 

I dont think our motors have enough sucking power to pull water up a cold air intake. It would shut off.

Get the oil changed as you said, also pull the intake and the IAC sensor. Make sure theyre clean and no water/water deposits are on them.

 

I agree with above posts and glad you didn't get stuck out on a rainy night! If it had hydro-locked=no go.

As an aside to a simpler nicer time (ha!)...
I learned a trick for cleaning the intake and combustion chambers of old BMW’s…from you guessed it, old BMW guys! Dislodge the vacuum line going to the intake manifold and then proceed to let the vacuum line leading to the manifold slowly slurp up about 1/4-1/2 cup of water (think of drinking the last few drops sucked out of a cup with a straw). After about 1/4 cup of water has been taken in, they would shut the engine down again for about 15 min, then restart with a plume coming out your tail pipe. For high mileage cars it helped give things a good steam cleaning.

I just use sea-foam with great results.

 

the same thing happened on my old civic when i was driving like an idiot near the side of the curb and my CAI sucked up a little water. car became sluggish and i turned it off immediately. I went to the intake (w/ my handy tools) and took off the intake at the intake manifold and sure enough, i saw a line of water drops at the bottom curve of the intake. I bet ur's has it too, take it off and clean it out.

 

Along this same line, and again from the "good old days" of carburetors and breaker-ignition, There were "water injector kits" that would pump a small amount of water into the carb at freeway speeds. Some of us even mixed denatured alcohol with the water to get e small extra power boost. The purpose of the water injection was to break up carbon deposits on the valves and in the combustion chamber.

Wave, you engine will be OK. But a bigger dose of water in the future might cause you some damage.

Dave

 

Water is not compressable like Air/Fuel. So normaly when you hydrolock it you bend rods. It is fairly hard to hydrolock the motor but it does happen alot more than it should. First thing you should do if you think you hydrolocked it, the car will more than likely die from lack of air or the spark plugs getting wet.

Pull the spark plugs then crank the motor over several times to get rid of any water that might be in the cylinders, Then procede with a compression test to verify if there is any damage, if the compression is low, go ahead with a Cylinder Leakdown Test, to figure out what is damaged, and go from there.

But if your Fit is still running just fine you are probably more than safe, you might do a compression test just for piece of mind, i have herd of cars running with slighty bent rods before. Just end up with a weak cylinder vs the rest.

 

On FitFreak Member "Wave" Fit the Engine Knock was a spun bearing! Rod Knock! Needs set of bearings and a rod possibly even a crank. To Say the least, since I had a spare motor out and on the ground..... You Know what happens next!

SO Saturday we swapped in my 5sp motor only and converted it to fit the A/T. (Basicaly replacing the flexplate and flywheel, Pilot bearing,Oil pan, and swapped over A/T harness)--These were only differences.

BUT in the process we pierced the Radiator..... Dealer only..... waiting.... $#!t $#!t $#!t $#!t !!!

BUT at least he's getting an upgrade! He had 40,xxx miles, and now he'll only have 27,xxx miles on his new engine!

Yes we both Drive our Fit's ALOT!

In the End he's going with a Short Ram Air Intake now! Smart move! I'm using SRI for the K20 soon as well!

 

how would it spin a bearing? was the oil in the old motor all coffe brown color like?

 

Yeah, thanks Lance for all the help. Gettinafit is THE MAN for anyone local needing help with some work on their car.

All that work with swapping out my old motor for your motor into such a tight space makes me truly appreciate how crazy putting that K20 into your Fit actually is!

Also I don't care how good the CAI sounds, sticking with SRI from now on.

Soooooo, about that 2008 Civic Si at the dealership.....

 

Yeah it sounded like something was wrong. Even though it may not hydrolock the motor, running a CAI through a puddle doesn't normally lead to bad results. And if my friends 95 Mazda protege with 90 horsepower can hydrolock, so can our Fits.

Sorry for your luck Wave. I will never go CAI unless it happens to be a car I use for the strip ONLY.

 

Possible scenarios for cause of failure:

1.) I think it was due to vacuum seal that the intake could not suck in air, so it was jolted in it's balanced spin putting pressure on directional rotation of the crank,
2.)along with the A/T probably shifted at that same time putting pressure on the flywheel also connected to the crank.

3.) OR lastly he actually did suck up "some" water enough to pressureize one cylinder.

To spin a bearing all you need is for the oil clearance to be taken up and the rotation take over! SO any of those situations could have happened.

WAVE said that after he went through the puddle the engine was still running BUT when he stepped on the gas the engine didn't respond well and the MIL ight came on. It is even possible that the throttle response caused the damage with water in the cylinder! He said that after a few minutes of that condition it went away and he was able to drive it normally, but then came the knock!

That 4 door looked hot! And well it has a K20 already in it! That's up to you, BUT now your Fit has new longevity and life! Just don't go through anymore puddles! Well, you do have a SRI now, so I guess Don't go through any puddles over 4 ft deep! heehehe, But that would be dangerous no matter what!

 

GET IT WAVE!!!! i love my 4 door Si... haha

 

If you have a Fit and an SI, let the Fit borrow the motor from the SI for a bit! hehehe would be a blast!