Originally posted by hype8912
Hydro lock sucks ass, It don't even have to get into the engine. The water just soaks the filter to where air won't come in anymore. SO in turn the engine stalls. You consider yourself lucky let the water dry out for a few minutes and drive on. Trust me I go through this pretty much everytime it rains here. I hit a big puddle or drive in the ruts in the pavement. Nothing but a quick stall. The intake tube is like a straw. It doesn't take much force for you to suck a cold drink through a straw so consider how much air your engine is sucking. It gets even worse the lower the car is.
I'm looking for a cheap short ram now. I'm tired of the CAI always getting dirty and the above.
hydrolock is when water is sucked into the cylinders. air compresses well in the cylinders (9.0:1, 10.0:1, 10.5:1, etc) but water does not compress well. not even a little bit. a little water getting up there is ok as the firing of the cylinder vaporizes the water and it passes right out the exhaust as water vapor. no problem. it's when too much gets in there, to the point that it fills the entire cylinder space at TDC (top dead center - when the piston is all the way up near the head) when things get bad. broken connecting rods are the most common result, and if you are lucky, the broken connecting rod won't rip a hole in the block as it gets whipped around by the crankshaft.
having the car just stall is because enough water gets in to prevent sufficient combustion from occuring, but not enough to fill the cylinder at TDC. cranking the engine usually gets enough of it out to start up again. this is not hydrolock, though.