AZ-S2000

Long story short. Friends car sucked up water, stalled. Towed home. Removed access water, used hair dryer, removed plugs, intake, fuel pump fuse... cranked.. water shot out.. used hair dryer some more on intake mani and cylinders while plugs out. Reinstalled everything and cranked.. but it started after 2'seconds. Let it sit, it sputtered for a second until everything went back to normal with smooth idle. Only thing is, there is a different engine noise from before which scares us.

So, question is, regardless that the engine seems to run normal.. what sort of long term damage could've been done? I mean, although I could be totally wrong but doesn't water on hot metal make micro cracks. My fear is long term reliability or issues?

SouthDakotaS2K

Bent rod or cracked piston is most common. Usually it's not the heat difference that is the issue, but the fact that water cannot be compressed plays a big role.

AZ-S2000

Just ran a compression test, got above 240 on all the cylinders. Still worried about long term reliability

kevinS2OOO

We need some rain here in Cali...

jkelley

I'm not a mechanic but I believe water in the combustion chamber damages rods more than anything. I believe that it's possible for a compression to come back fine afterwards as the stroke of the piston would still be relatively fine and the valve train would not be affected except for the stroke that the water was in there but possibly not damage the moving parts. The crank turning against an incompressible fluid I would think would be the problem, which I believe would make the rods fail first.

Because I'm not a mechanic, I don't know what to check first, to be honest with you maybe pull the oil pan and check the rods?

postman

Elaborate on the new noise. Check/change the oil.

Colinian

Change the oil. There's pronably water in that maybe causing sounds. I'm not a mechanic though, so I can't help any further.

cosmomiller

How did it suck up water? CAI brand?

nissanfanatic

I bent a rod in my KA24 Turbo gradually over time and compression dropped. I think if you have good compression and the engine runs fine, you are good. My #4 rod gradually dropped from 170 to 150psi over the course of a month from running 25psi of boost. I thought it was rings going bag until I pulled the piston/rod and it was parabolic.

As stated, I'd change oil and call it good. It is a good idea to run higher RPM for a bit every once in a while to get oil near 212*F to cook any water off of the oil.