Today around 6pm on the way home from church it started POURING rain, probubly the biggest rain all summer (and it rains every freakn day here). Anyways, so far so good, no real big puddles, just hard pounding rain and no visibility. Well, I come to an intersection and get in the left hand turn lane. Low and behold the entire entersection is flooded!! The water was coming up past the bumpers of small cars, to the bumpers of normal midsized cars and even close on the SUV's. Well I was like ohh **** my engines going to get ruined.

If I was a normal Maxima I wouldn't be worried that much, but my car sits 3 inches off the ground with a cattman cai filter sitting down in the underbody of my car. When I converted my car to 5spd a week ago I opened the underbody a little so more air could get in. Pretty dumb move for a situation like this.

So anyways, light turns green and I am going like 3mph bracing for my car to lock up and die. I see other cars stalled in the road, some probubly hydrolocked. I quickly looked out my window and the water was well above my front lip. It seemed like it was a foot deep at certain points. Well after a couple intense minutes I finally crawled out of the huge mess in the intersection and back onto somewhat unflooded roads.

Now for the Bad News. When I came home I went under the car and felt the filter in the fenderwell and it was wet and dirty. Significantly wet, and the dirt was thick and oily. I was surprised it didn't lock up on me. How much water has to be induced into the engine before it locks? I guess I'll be cleaning my filter a little early, but it's a small price to pay for what could have happened!

 

Close call man, glad you made it through. I think the air filter would have to be sucking in solid water almost all the way around to hydrolock.

 

Thanks. I thought any water in there would do damage. Come to think of it, I guess water getting sucked up in there would get burned up in a matter of seconds, unless it was a huge gulp of water. I made sure to go extra slow too so I bet that helped out.

 

you need to TOTALLY submerge your filter inorder to "hydrolock" your engine. Just by it getting misted or splashed a lil wont cause you to lock up.

.... i think

Ant

 

Well It was really scary nonetheless! I am pretty certain that at least a part of my filter was submerged. And I was barely crawling so I didn't swoosh the water around in there either.

 

bypass valve? just incase, ya know?

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Craig Mack

what body kit is that on your maxima it looks awesome

 

Yea, I know what your sayin', but if your in deep enough water a bypass valve isn't gonna do jack. Besides this is by far the closest call i've had, I live in a hilly part of FL (central florida) that has well sloped roads to avoid floodage. If it does come up...then I guess i'll just have to take it like a man.


Nore, it's a stillen kit.

 

I had a CAI and converted to Hybrid. I did it to expereince the btter top end, not for water concerns. But, with the hybrid, it feels nice not to have any concerns of hydrolocking at all anymore, even though my car never experienced anything like what yours is going thru.

If I were you, I'd convert to Hybrid. That VQ motor is like Gold to me, I wouldn't want to lose it over H20. Be prepared, though, if you convert to a Hybrid, for that 1st week, you will feel the low end power loss. NOTHING beats a CAI for low end torque. After the week, though, the ECU will have adjusted and the low end won't be so bad. And the top end will be better


ANd, if you don't like it, convert back to CAI. Small price to pay for preserving the VQ30DE.

DW

 

Any reason reverse doesn't work? Heck I'd back up and find a different route. Lucky my friend lucky.

Anyhow that's my wize advice.

 

Dwapenyi, You are 5-speed right? Strangly 5spd Maxima's with Popchargers rarely admit to feeling low end loss while automatics feel it bigtime! When I was auto I felt the lag with my pop and felt it deminish when I put in my CAI. Now that I am 5-speed I wonder does it matter anymore? I mean I have killer off the line power now, so will it really make a difference in loss? And your right the VQ is like gold...it is the best V6 technology you can get, there is none better. I let my friend with a lightning drive my max back when I was auto with ONLY a popcharger and he was like damn this car roars under WOT! It sure does, it sure does.

Wizeguy, believe me, when I was at that light and saw the big mess I was thinking of making a U-turn and going the opposite way. But even THAT part of the road was flooded, and if I took that turn at the angle that it was set at, I would have been worse off.

 

Water doesn't compress like air, that's what you've got to look out for.

 

hey craig....don't get happy yet!!!

i was also thinking about the cai and live in miami...so hydrolock is definately a concern for me....

according to 2K2DEMAX engine died two weeks after driving through deep water
I have since changed my mind about purchasing one while i live in florida because it rains fast and floods often and usually there is no drainage in many areas that I do drive

if you can at all...go and get your car looked at...and give 2K2DEMAX a pm!!

http://forums.maxima.org/showthread....0&pagenumber=2

 

what popcharger did u use 2 have?

 

maybe change oil?? I dunno if that have 2 do with anything... maybe water got into his engine oil??

 

you would have to contact 2KD2EMAX for more information...as far as I understand the culprit to his engine failure was the cai


but you also have to understand that June - November it rains basically every day ...sometimes allll day...and when it rains like that the ground cant absorb anymore water...hence all the streets floods

and then to make matters worse...most of the roads USED to be part of the everglades....so they are more than happy to revert back to the swamp that they once were

I live in the flood zone and I work in the flood zone the places that I frequent are in flood zones...some zones flood more than others

and if you are driving in an area that you have never done so before you have no way of gauging where the ground is in relation to the high water mark, especially if the road is F'ed up to begin with

there are people who have homes that flood EVERY SINGLE time it rains
imagine what happens to thier cars.....:sad:

 

it only rained twice here this month
I don't like hot & sticky weather, good thing I'm not in Florida

 

 

move

 

ohhh the temptation.....if and when I do....I'm definately going back to VA and joining the NE crew

 

Hydrolock doesn't necessarily kill a motor... depends on what kind of RPM's you are turning when you do it. Usually you can just pull the spark plugs - turn the motor over a few to clear it out - change the oil - run it up and down the street and change oil again. Not to mention a "little" water will clear out some carbon and increase compression for a little while - I have heard that some people actually use water injection for exactly those reasons, but that is a more exact science then sucking it up from a puddle through your intake.

Anybody that wheels has seen this at least once... I have seen a Toy 4 cyl hydrolock completely and it is still running fine thousands of miles later... but it was only just idling when it happened.

 

it doesn't take much to lock up an engine, i think the 95-99 engines were right around 10:1 compression and you have 3 litres total divided into 6 cylinders. so that's .5 litres per cylinder when it's wide open and then .05 litres 50ml which isn't much at all in ANY ONE cylinder and bamn lock up, it doesnt take much water at all to lock an engine. if it's at a lower RPM there is less chance of serious damage. now you see why i don't want to drill a hole in my car and hang a filter inches off the ground

-steve

 

damn
If I would have been in your shoes and would see that flood, I would not dare to drive through it. I rather take another way to my destination or park elsewhere and walk the rest of the way.

 

Well My motor is fine now. I've driven it hard and long today and it's still as good as ever. I got lucky, but I guess I have to clean the damn filter and throttle body again...I just cleaned them

And BTW, you DON'T want to move to canada from florida...florida is the ****. Everyone envy's us becuase we have nice warm weather in a tropical setting. And always remember..."BLAME CANADA!"

Dennis, my old intake was an ebay deal that cost $50. It was surgical paper like K&N's and looked like a jet engine.

 

Thanks for educating me I am considering converting to hybrid just to be safe becuase I am 5spd now and have plenty of torque and power off the line. Hmm....

DumbMaxima88 You should try fabricating a frankencar CAI just for ***** and giggles...I bet you would see a nice increase in torque over your hybrid! But then again its not like your car needs more off the line power!

NyceMinima I was STUCK. I couldn't reverse b/c there were cars behind me. I couldnt make a U-turn becuase that was flooded too. I was SCREWED. And lol I couldn't have walked home becuase I was in another city at that time

 

Craig, Yea I know how you feel. I ran into the weather today too. So how is that 5spd working for ya?

 

Why the rolleyes?

I LOVE my 5-speed. It OWNS automatics...seriously dude...like today I came outta my neighborhood, made a right and was in first gear @ 14mph. I floored it WITHOUT downshifting and my tires squeeled and i torque steered a little. It was soo awesome. Today I dropped my little bro off at his friends house and I revved to around 4k rpms and roasted the tires for them. Spinning all through 1st gear. It is soo much fun...im never gonna get tired of it.

 

Roll eyes because I want to convert mine over.

 

I once ruined a Ford 4.6 in a Crown Vic (company car) by driving through water. I stopped and put it in reverse, but a fire truck came up behind me with lights and siren blasting, so I had no choice but to move forward. I got far enough to get out of the way of the fire truck, and the engine just suddenly and loudly quit. When they pulled it apart, they told me four connecting rods were bent. I guess engines weren't designed to be water pumps!

 

I would get the bypass valve if you keep a CAI setup. I don't know how far down in the fender the filter goes, but if you mount the valve just before the MAF it should give you about one vertical ft. extra. SCC tested the valve here:
Tested: AEM Air-Bypass Valve

Also, welcome to the world of manual transmissions, you won't go back. If you drive like me though, you won't keep tires for very long. I've become a connoisseur of used tires here in Orlando.

 

I'll look into the bypass valve...hopefully it won't rob me of HP.

You live in orlando? Were you at the publix in college park last sunday? I saw a couple superblack '99 SE's that day..

 

Wasn't me, I was coming back from Gainesville last Sunday. I live in Waterford Lakes East.

 

Why don't you remove your sparkplugs, pour a little water in there, put the plugs back in, and start the engine. Or better yet, start the engine and just squirt a little water in there. Then take a picture and show everyone what a steam cleaned piston looks like. It should be easy, since you will probably have a hole in the engine block. And don't worry about that loud, clanging noise. That is only a broken rod and probably won't hurt anything.

 

Yup. 5 speed. The better gearing is able to hide the low end loss better, I guess. It's there, but not so bad.

DW

 

This is what happens when you put a custom cold-air intake at the bumper level, and drive through a puddle after a lot of rain;




Any questions?

 

What the hell is that?? That's not your car is it?