Hydrolocking a motor question
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There is no easy answer to that question. Injesting water in to the combustion chamger is never going to be a good thing.
In my opinion, the amount of water that could hydro-lock the system is a bit of a variable because with high engine and intake temperatures some of the water will boil off and vaporize prior to being an issue. Further, the type of intake and filter that is on the car will cause the amount of water that will actually make it to the motor be a variable as well. With all of that said, I can't really say that 2ozs of water or 8 ozs of water would do it with any certainty.
Where water is an issue is because it can't be compressed. If enough of it makes it in to the cylinder and the cylinder comes around and attempts to get close enough to get in to the combustion region and there is water there it will prevent the cylinder from reaching its top of stroke and cause the cam to slow it's revolution. If it attempts to compress, doesn't combust it will further retart it's rotation and so on, and so on until it just won't move.
If you have a stock air box, you don't have a lot to worry about. They are designed to prevent water injestion (other than driving through a lake sized puddle at speed) but rain and ambient moisture won't be a concern.
In my opinion, the amount of water that could hydro-lock the system is a bit of a variable because with high engine and intake temperatures some of the water will boil off and vaporize prior to being an issue. Further, the type of intake and filter that is on the car will cause the amount of water that will actually make it to the motor be a variable as well. With all of that said, I can't really say that 2ozs of water or 8 ozs of water would do it with any certainty.
Where water is an issue is because it can't be compressed. If enough of it makes it in to the cylinder and the cylinder comes around and attempts to get close enough to get in to the combustion region and there is water there it will prevent the cylinder from reaching its top of stroke and cause the cam to slow it's revolution. If it attempts to compress, doesn't combust it will further retart it's rotation and so on, and so on until it just won't move.
If you have a stock air box, you don't have a lot to worry about. They are designed to prevent water injestion (other than driving through a lake sized puddle at speed) but rain and ambient moisture won't be a concern.
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Unless you plan on driving thru a 3 ft deep puddle on a repeated basis,why worry? You would probably need to submerge the entire nose of the car up to and including the hood.There is no real way for water to get "into" the motor with the stock set up as far as I can see.
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The combustion chamber volume in an LS2/LS3/LS7 head hovers around 60ish CCs, so, theoretically, if all the water you ingested was going into one cylinder, that's what it'd take. It works out to about 1/4 of a glass full.
In practice, as Talon said, it depends on several things, the most important of which being how quickly the water is being ingested. The bottom line is that you never want to make it possible for your engine to take a gulp of water. Hydrolock or not, the results won't be good.
In practice, as Talon said, it depends on several things, the most important of which being how quickly the water is being ingested. The bottom line is that you never want to make it possible for your engine to take a gulp of water. Hydrolock or not, the results won't be good.
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:goodpost::thumbsup3:
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Good information. I actually try not to drive my car in the rain 
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You and me both, but I have gotten caught a few times and no problems.Good information. I actually try not to drive my car in the rain
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:lol: Yeah, that was my thought. Stock air box is going to be the most resilient. Any oiled open filter intakes without a cut shroud and mounted high will be the next. Any high mounted with cut shroud for a "cold air" ingestion will be next to worst and the worst will be any low mounted/with or without cut shroud will be the most risk.It wasn't that I was looking to drive my car into any water
Good information though, thanks everyone
I've driven my Corvette in some pretty severe rain and I had driven my C5 with a Blackwing open element intake in a hurricane (literally) while on a trip down to Bowling Green (it was coming up as I was going down) and the rain was so heavy that the highway looked like little rivers as we were progressing. These heavy rains lasted for over 30 minutes at a time and we drove through about 3 waves of them. Neither car faltered (other than the hydroplaning and the total absence of visibility) we were none the worse for wear.
Standing water and the depth and speed you take it at can be your worst nightmare for potential water ingestion so use that as your guide.
If you are just out and about and get caught in a downpour, no real worries. The design team tested for that and the car is as safe as any other vehicle with regard to ingestion.
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I myself have never gotten caught in any serious rain but have heard from others that have and surprisingly the Corvettes do OK in the rain if you practice sensible driving habits.
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They do drive pretty good in rain when you keep your right foot from hammering on the pedal :wheelchair:
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Absolutely. I probably have more than 5 thousand miles of driving this car in serious rainstorms. Back when I was running a set of new Michelin Pilot Sport PS2s, I could hammer the gas off a tollboth in torrential rain, the tires would spin, T/C would come on, and it would *GO!* I could comfortably drive the car at 70+MPH when some would be pulling off the road because the rain was so hard. It never hydroplaned ONCE with those tires.
Now that I have wider race tires I have to slow down to the speed limit when it is raining, but that's about it. The only time rain driving has ever been an issue for me is when the tires were bald.
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I drive mine everyday, rain, snow, or shine, and can attest to the fact that I haven't had a problem yet. My car is bone stock (not for lack of wishing though) and I have driven it through all sorts of rain showers. Like he said above, watch what you're doing and you'll be okay.
A guy that works at my local dealership on the other hand has hydrolocked the motor in his C5. He had some kind of aftermarket intake (not sure what brand) and ended up hitting a rather large, deep puddle and ingested enough to lock it. On an upnote, he was able to swap in a very nice crate motor.
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PS2's are such a good tire, what are you running now?
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I run Nitto 555R2 on the back and Toyo Proxes T1R on the front. They are not the best in the rain
But its soft racing rubber and when it gets warm the traction is unbeatable :thumbsup3:
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Well, with that new found power you have you need that extra stick!I run Nitto 555R2 on the back and Toyo Proxes T1R on the front. They are not the best in the rain
But its soft racing rubber and when it gets warm the traction is unbeatable :thumbsup3:
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Oh yes. My car was very unsafe before I put race tires on it. One day I put it sideways on the highway at 80 miles a hour passing another car. A week later it had race tires :eek2:
!!!!!!!!!!! I would had made a b line to the closest store for new drawers!
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