Ya, I was surprised because I have gone through deeper pools of water without this happening before. But I was going a lot faster when that happened.

 

So, do you guys think that going faster thru the puddles is better with a CAI installed?

 

well, for a large puddle that will be at intake filter height, i'd say avoid it as much as possible. if you absolutely have to go through it, i think faster is better, but in neutral or as low of revs as possible.

from what i gather, you want to avoid having it suck up water...if the engine is not sucking in air, no water should get in! if you're going fast in neutral, then hopefully you go through it fast enough where water doesn't seep in and also no water is sucked up.

i actually went through a flooded area. i think what happened to me is this:

- went through real slow and submerged the filter
- engine suffocated and stalled
- water collected in intake, and engine sucked up some water when i tried to restart...causing it to stall again, and ultimately not start until i replaced the plugs.

 

Are you guys driving lowered s2000's? I've been running with AEM CAI's on two different s2000's now for around 3 years and have driven though some pretty imposing puddles.

Couldn't you just slap a filter on the top half of the intake and run a hot air intake when it rains instead of using the CAI strictly for the track? That sounds like a lot of work otherwise.

 

mine's not lowered. i haven't had any problems with puddles to tell you the truth; only the one time i tried to ford a river...seriously, the water was above my tires...so stupid of me.

about the hot air intake...i'm pretty lazy, that is too much work for me, haha. i just have to be careful from now on, and not repeat my last mistake.

 

Doesn't AEM make a bypass valve that will work on the S2000 intakes? I wouldn't touch an intake here unless it had that bypass valve - way too much flash flooding and standing water after rain.

 

mine has the bypass valve but I have yet to test it while the filter is off to see if it does anything. it is this maybe 1/2 inch valve that is supposed to drain water but something tells me that would only help if your car was parked in the rain. it seems like there is too much room for the water to go around the valve on it's way to destroying you're motor but who knows.

 

The bypass defeats the purpose of having a CAI, because the air is just sucked through that instead of the filter, even when your not in water. What I have decided to do is just to disconnect the intake at the throttle body. You might suck a little bit of unfiltered air in but its a lot better then hydrolock. I mean most ITBs are not filtered. So one day can't be too bad. If you are really that scared of getting hydrolock do the gutted airbox with K&N drop in filter, or a snorkel

In a related story my friend has a civic with a CAI and it sucked up a little water the other day and it stalled out. But him being the stupid person that he is, decided that it was not a big deal. He let it sit for a day and it started running again. Then after driving for a little bit the engine block blew. HA. I am going to try to get pictures of it.

 

i think i confused that little hole near the bottom of the intake with a bypass valve. i assume this hole is designed to drain a little water but not like the bypass valve would.

 

The AEM bypass valve doesn't suck air in through the bypass valve (in significant amounts) when the CAI isn't in water. I'm not sure where you're hearing that but it doesn't make sense. Path of least resistance is the key there and the diaphragm in the valve isn't the path of least resistance - way smaller opening with essentially the same filtering properties as the air filter at the bottom of the CAI means that it's the most restricted intake point on the CAI.

AEM doesn't recommend you use it on FI motors, since airflow requirements could very well cause the diaphragm to open all the time. Otherwise, you should be fine.

I'm only speaking of the AEM bypass valve, not all of the re-engineered Chinese imitations out there.