My son decided to drive through a puddle during the heavy rains last night with my lowered Prelude and the AEM cold air intake became a vacuum. The engine will not run and I haven't had time to look at it. What damage usually occurs when this happens?
To make matters worse it was a new JDM F22 motor with only 17,000 KM on it.

 

Wow that sucks, when he ran over the puddle did the car stall and hasnt started since? did he hear an explosion?Usually, the engine is destroyed, and has to be replaced I just got done helping a friend replace his girlfriends integra ls motor. She drove over a deep puddle with an AEM cold air intake, sucked water into her block, blew a rod and a large hole in her block, and caused enough damage to have to replace the entire motor. The tranny was ok but other than that there were not enough salvageable parts for a rebuild to be worth it.

 

Thanks - I quess. It appearently stopped dead. I hope he was going slow but I doubt it. I'm on the way to look at it now.

 

Ouch, he hydrollocked the lude. If he was traveling at Low RPMS hopefully there wont be much damage, but sounds like your son may have put some damage to the motor . Good luck hopefully everything works out.

 

It won't turn over. I pulled the plugs thinking there might be water in the cylinders and 2-4 look ok but 1 has a very shiny top of the piston. There is no obvious rod through the block wall but I haven't pulled the head yet. I'm hoping for a bent valve.

I have been building engines for years. Mostly american ones - I have a 429 in the Cobra. Who has good prices on rebuild kits for Hondas. Summit charges $350 or so for a complete kit withpistons for a Chev 350 and the same amount for the rods alone in a Honda.
It seems the whole industry is trying to put one over on the Import people by charging an incredible amount for parts.

 

Parts are more expensive for import than domestic cars cause they last longer....Have you tried turning the motor by hand? Drain all the oil to see if there is any water in that

 

check compression
if the motor turns over then thats better than nothing
have u tried cranking it while the plugs are out?

u def hydrolocked it tho
so keep that in mind

depending on the damage done
it could be new motor time again

this is why i dont use CAI, i prefer the short pipe
it has better throttle response and makes more torque than the CAI

there is a guy around here who is selling a used f22a1 from his accord for like $400
the ad is in his signature

look around for him in the kill stories forum

~boom

 

usually a rod blows, integra gsr down here hydrollocked his tegra and blew a rod, so he kep the top end of the motor and got an integra ls bottom, frankinstine block or w/e. but you might want to go for the new motor depending on damage...sorry about the lude hope something works out