Minnesota Focus Owners Club

How realistic is Hydrolock with a CAI? I understand it is "possible," but has anyone ever actually experienced it? How common is it?

i ran a flooded half block a couple years back at wot and it only killed the engine. it started right back up. in most cases the weight of the water is enough to stall the engine, but if you are in water and start the engine you are more likely to suck up water. i pushed my car up on a curb to start it up .

my friend did it in his jetta, but i dont think it happens often.

It happened to one of the local guys, He's not super active on here but it destroyed his engine.

He bought a replacement from Al.

I've seen other pics from people on the Jet, It's not super common but it's entirely real and it does happen.

I've seen at least two engines with a rod through the block due to water ingestion.

FORDSVTPARTS wrote:It happened to one of the local guys, He's not super active on here but it destroyed his engine.

He bought a replacement from Al.

Boy did it ever. I've got some crappy pictures up, but I still have to tear the thing down to get the full carnage shots. I bought the replacement from Al, like Steve says, and brought it home in the wife's ZX3. I wish I'd had the time and energy to have done the SVT swap then. That would have been sweet.

If anybody wants the intake that was on my car when it happened, just send me a PM. ...and I'll slap the everlovin' crap out of you.

yeah, i have left the cold water intakes alone, id rather get the air from a scoope on the hood any ways.

I know it is a rare thing, but I can not help but take it seriously. What kind of intake did you have Harold? Was it protected in any way? (Via shield, prefilter, or anything?)

It was just a cheap eBay CAI. No shields or bypass or anything. I'll probably keep it for intercooler piping on my XR or something, but I'm sure as hell not installing the whole thing on my Focus again.

But oh why not!?!?

I don't understand why people would run an intake that sticks so low on the car? What are you really achieving with that setup more then a standard short ram or something?

o2designs wrote: I don't understand why people would run an intake that sticks so low on the car? What are you really achieving with that setup more then a standard short ram or something?

Colder air. The IATs reported on my Scangauge 2 were lower with the CAI than the stock setup. It wasn't an astounding difference, but it was a difference nonetheless. I don't know what the under-hood airflow is like on a Focus, so for all I know and SRI could give you cooler air, too. It kind of looks to me like that'd be a dead-spot and would be, if anything, warmer than what the stock snorkel sees. Plus, it was cheaper than I'd found for a replacement stock airbox at the time (I know where to look now).

Until my little incident, I always figured you'd need to submerge the whole filter to suck in enough water to even stall the engine. Given that, it didn't seem like such a bad idea to run a filter in the air that hadn't been heated by passing through the condenser and radiator first. I'm certain the puddle I ran through wasn't deep enough to have submerged the filter. I don't think it was deep enough to even reach the filter had I pulled in slowly instead of having been at 55 mph.

I'd like to see the IATs with a short ram(Volant, BMC) vs. the Cold air...

I never did a datalog of either, so I don't have that on hand. I was just going by a digital readout for comparison. I would be willing to log temps with an SRI or Volant, but somebody would have to lend me one. I can't really compare it with a stock intake, either, since the guys at the body shop lost the top part of the snorkel on mine so it's probably sucking in some warm air, too.

o2designs wrote:I'd like to see the IATs with a short ram(Volant, BMC) vs. the Cold air...

on the task master i got it shows about a 5-10 degree change from stock to ebay cai. now with a short ram its like 10 -20 warmer than ambeiant. with my vented hood at speed its more like 8-15 cooler than ambeiant, and the filter draws from the hood fender gap and soon a ducted opening from the hood.

o2designs wrote:But oh why not!?!?

I don't understand why people would run an intake that sticks so low on the car? What are you really achieving with that setup more then a standard short ram or something?

I do... But I think you're familiar with space constraints for the engine bay on the Contours

The CAI is much quieter than my short ram (warm air intake) was back in the day. I've thought about buying one of those filter covers....

Sure, the CAI will be alittle colder...but with that temp differences, what are you really gonna notice 1-2hp? To me, thats not worth risking having a filter down that low...

After bringing this up with Randy at FS, he also mentioned MAFS position, when you start messing with that, you affect alot of air-fuel mixtures, and which could lower your IAT's, but can really richen or lean the motor and make it run and idle worse...