Water in OTR intake

[Ron Burgundy]

I drove on the highway today for about 45min and it was raining.
The rain was not bad at all.

When I got home I was curious whether there was any water in the otr.

I discovered a bit of water in there before the filter.... drops mostly.

What also suprised me was drops of water on top of CAI. Bonnet seal is still there and I am not sure how water got there.

I am aware that at the bottom of cai before the filter there is a little hole which seems to be there for water to drain.

Anyone had any issues with OTR in rain causing issues and water getting past the filter ?

I am wondering if there is any danger of lots of water getting in past the filter under fairly normal driving conditions i.e. driving on the highway in the rain ?

 

[Forg]

Mist, spray, rain, water splashed by other cars from puddles etc etc is going to get into the engine-bay of pretty much any car ... and in the main, it's only those vehicles with snorkels that aren't ingesting their air from in there.

Someone who knows what they're actually talking about may disagree, but if it were me, I'd not only not worry about it but I'd think it's normal.

 

[Ron Burgundy]

I am wondering if I should trim the bit that is protruding down into grille area as this seems to act as a scoop. I am then thinking this would probably affect the airflow as well if it was trimmed down...

Or maybe...this is all just fine and I am overthinking it, over a very small amount of water in the housing BEFORE the filter...

 

[warrick]

i think you are probably over thinking it. that amount of rain is never going to get past the filter and even if it did it would do nothing to the motor and probably evaporate before it got to the internals. i had a ski boat with 308 and holley on it with open ram tube which would get a heap more than that in it and never had an issue.
cheers

 

[MrBags]

I daily drove my old Caprice for 90,000 km with an OTR in all sorts of conditions. Never had a problem with it. It’s all gonna be fine mate.

 

[shane_3800]

Like warrick said even if some got past it's going to do nothing.

You would have to be driving through the heaviest down poor ever seen in Australia for it to even get to the point you would be worried.

 

[Skylarking]

It’s been discussed a few times and as always, opinions vary.

Usually engines will hydralock if the air intake is rather low and someone is driving through standing water. In such cases, if water is near the bottom of the vehicle, one simply needs a bow wave to meet up with the bottom of the intake pipe and the engine will ingest a big gulp of water which may not end well. The bow wave can be caused by the vehicle itself or another vehicle coming the other way…

This is particularly a problem in Corvette c6 with a low VaraRam CAI setup as mentioned in the corvette forum thread . It was also an issue for a standard Nissan 370Z sold as a repairable writeoff at auction some years ago.

Supposedly this is from C6 owners manual

But the VF intake (even with CAI) is much higher than either the Nissan or Corvette intakes so should be less of an issue. Normal rainfall isn’t an issue and heavy rainfall that impacts visibility can result in more danger from crashing than hydro locking and engine. But you could be unlucky, if it’s raining heaps, and the roads have standing water with some tosser flying towards you throwing up a sheet of water that hits the front of the car. But there’s a low probability of such occurring and it comes down to the old Dirty Harry moment

If the rare event ever occurs, some insurance companies would cover hydralock from water being thrown up and or driving through standing water… A dashcam of the incident could be helpful when making claims.

 

[vc commodore]

If the filter is dry, I wouldn't be concerned....After all, the water has to get into the filter before it gets sucked into the engine to cause any issues

It is great to ask the question though...If you don't ask you'll never know.

 

[shane_3800]

It’s been discussed a few times and as always, opinions vary.

Usually engines will hydralock if the air intake is rather low and someone is driving through standing water. In such cases, if water is near the bottom of the vehicle, one simply needs a bow wave to meet up with the bottom of the intake pipe and the engine will ingest a big gulp of water which may not end well. The bow wave can be caused by the vehicle itself or another vehicle coming the other way…

This is particularly a problem in Corvette c6 with a low VaraRam CAI setup as mentioned in the corvette forum thread . It was also an issue for a standard Nissan 370Z sold as a repairable writeoff at auction some years ago.

Supposedly this is from C6 owners manual

View attachment 223403

But the VF intake (even with CAI) is much higher than either the Nissan or Corvette intakes so should be less of an issue. Normal rainfall isn’t an issue and heavy rainfall that impacts visibility can result in more danger from crashing than hydro locking and engine. But you could be unlucky, if it’s raining heaps, and the roads have standing water with some tosser flying towards you throwing up a sheet of water that hits the front of the car. But there’s a low probability of such occurring and it comes down to the old Dirty Harry moment

If the rare event ever occurs, some insurance companies would cover hydralock from water being thrown up and or driving through standing water… A dashcam of the incident could be helpful when making claims.

Dude we just did an engine on a car where they drove into flood water and insurance covered it.
There was sand and mud in the air box.

 

[wetwork65]

I recall some punters believe that a water spray into their engines improves the fuel burning process, so maybe not a bad thing. In your case, the water is drawn off your filter medium as fine droplets.
However in your setup, you're lacking any proper metering of the water flow rate.

Despite my engineering ramblings above, there's probably a certain amount of entrained water in your fuel anyway, so I suspect not a great problem or benefit to be worried about here.