It's been a while since i've been on here, but I come with bad news. I KILLED MY CAR! after 2 years of careful driving with the CAI..I finally hydrolocked the engine. I got it started again but now it's got issues. Low pressure in the #2 cylinder and misfires in the 2nd and 4th Cylinders. The car is sitting behind my fiances dads garage, he's doing diag. tryin find the problem, most likely going to have to tear it apart. I have to fix it because i can't afford a new car, but it could be a while because he's working on paying customers cars.....*sigh*[rant][mecry]

What did you do??? Did you go through a puddle????

yeah, i got stuck in the curb lane during heavy rain and nobody would let me over, I went through bigger puddles than this, and I went like 5 miles an hour...I must have just caused it to splash the right way.

dude, rough. It takes more than just a puddle to hydrolock you. You must have driven into Lake Erie

Crap...okay I'm buying a bypass ASAP.

I want to get one but i've heard the bypass's dont fit the Cosworth's

I wonder if they fit MM intakes...

sri ftw!! sorry to hear that man hope its not that bad.

oh man...that sucks. im sorry to hear that dude.

good luck fixing it.

A bypass won't work on the Duratec no matter what CAI brand you have, by the time you get it past the MAF sensor its almost as low as the filter itself and will serve no purpose.

SRI is the only 100% safe rout for a aftermarket intake.

Bad luck, and I'm sorry to hear the story. I hope everyone reads this thread.

There are people who continue to insist that the problem was not caused by a CAI, but rather by the driver. This is simply not true. You don't have to drive through waist-deep water to get a hydro-lock. All it takes is a splash that hits the air cleaner at a certain angle, with a certain force. Combine that with a little bad luck, and you get a hydro-lock, and a badly damaged engine.

People who continue to promote CAI systems on a Focus are promoting gambling with your engine..... a gamble often lost.

Sorry.....

I didn't realize you couldn't run a bypass on a dura, that sucks. CAI, w/ bypass valves are just fine for a zetec, there is absolutley no problem there. I"ve had my filter completely submerged and it was fine. but maybe its not as bad as you thought??? (fingers crossed)

Bad luck, and I'm sorry to hear the story. I hope everyone reads this thread.

There are people who continue to insist that the problem was not caused by a CAI, but rather by the driver. This is simply not true. You don't have to drive through waist-deep water to get a hydro-lock. All it takes is a splash that hits the air cleaner at a certain angle, with a certain force. Combine that with a little bad luck, and you get a hydro-lock, and a badly damaged engine.

People who continue to promote CAI systems on a Focus are promoting gambling with your engine..... a gamble often lost.

Sorry.....

thats not always true dude.

i live in socal, it hardly rains here (albeit a few days a year)

but we don't get enough rain for it ever to cause enough of a problem, at least not on the roads i am on.

my focus was dropped all the way on coilovers, about 3 inches, i ran a CAI all year round and never once had a problem at all.

a lot of it has to do with being aware of your surroundings and knowing where you should be driving and shouldn't be.

thats a ridiculous generalization that its a gamble, because for the proportion of people that have CAI opposed to the people that hydrolock is very little in the grand scheme of things.

thats too bad man....what are we at like 4 kills due to hydrolock for a duratec?

jw but what cai are/were you running?

Ya that makes me just want to scratch off the whole stealth intake or aftermarket CAI all together on my car...

SRI ftw!

I also thought a working bypass valve on a Duratec or any other engine, might save you from a hydro-lock.

The bypass valve would be as close as possible to the intake manifold......where the MAFS was located wouldn't matter. We're trying to save the engine not the MAFS.

When/if the air-filter got wet enough to allow water to get sucked in, the suction would open the by-pass valve instead of sucking in water. At least that's how it should work. Correct me if I'm wrong.


And it goes without saying.......if you always drive in dry areas, you'll have little chance of a hydro-lock. But many of us drive in the rain, and through puddles......it's a gamble with a CAI.

Why don't you people post this before I buy a CAI and sell my stock intake...[:(]

That's it, I'm buying this:

http://www.autoanything.com/air-filters/65A2582A0A0.aspx?kc=ffproduct

That's it, I'm buying this:

http://www.autoanything.com/air-filters/65A2582A0A0.aspx?kc=ffproduct (http://www.focusfanatics.com/forum/redirector.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.autoanything.com%2Fair-filters%2F65A2582A0A0.aspx%3Fkc%3Dffproduct)

that should be a given...lol

if you have a filter that low you should have a prefilter.

I'm in royalton... about ten miles out of parma and was thinking the "crap" about hydrolock was all just that "crap". Where were you when you locked the engine?

We've had a few storms roll though this area and they didn't seem that bad. Unless you were getting on one the on-ramps near Fulton and I-71...

I was debating on getting one of these (but the car isn't my fav) and I decided against it, thank god!

Good luck, make sure you keep us posted

Why don't you people post this before I buy a CAI and sell my stock intake...[:(]
It's posted all over the net... You're the buyer, it's your job to search and investigate product before purchasing...



I lived in Ohio(Elyria) for 2 years with my CAI and then moved to Cali. This past winter has been the wettest in a while and I never had no problems. Like I say you just have to be careful. I've went through some pretty nasty puddles and even semis dumped a huge amount of water at me and I was fine. You just have to be very cautious of your surroundings.

Just because there are 2 or 3 threads about doesn't really mean it's a failure. There's 60k+ members on this site too....

That true...It just opens the top end of the 2.3 so much...

Sorry to hear that. I know we have had some pretty good storms recently and with the ground as wet as it was. The rain was all over the place.

That's why I went with my Volant. I know you can't put one on the duratec, but definitely a SRI is the only way to go if you live in a snowy environment 1/3 the year (here). The heatsoak you get from a SRI is a small price to pay for having assurance you won't hydrolock your engine.

I would...I have tons of vents in my hood. I have no options...lol

coppertits, I was on Ridgewood dr right in front of Parma Town, Not the best drainage over there. Like Is aid I've driven through deeper than that, Must have just hit it the right way.

i may get a CAI because i live in cali and my car isnt a DD. if it were i def wouldnt do it.

That's why I went with my Volant. I know you can't put one on the duratec, but definitely a SRI is the only way to go if you live in a snowy environment 1/3 the year (here). The heatsoak you get from a SRI is a small price to pay for having assurance you won't hydrolock your engine.

Yup! If you have Zetec, the Volant is the way to go. If you have a Dtec, then you have other options. With a CAI, its more a question of WHEN, not an IF. Caveat > Unless you live in SoCal which will be rationing water in the near future if they don't get some rain soon. Hoping for you guys get a bunch soon!

That sucks.. gl working on a fix man

Ok so we've made some progress. Replaced the coils to try to fix the Miss's....but with no success. My future father in law took it to a friend and the dyno shop and they put an oscilloscope on it....and as it stands it seems based on the engine balance and vibration readings I bent the crank shaft. A new one at cost is 750 so I'm just going to replace then engine. F2 has used 2.3's between 800 and 1100 depending on mileage. On the plus side thet don't have a core charge so I don't HAVE to send the old engine back....I could potentially have a project engine to work on.

I ran an AEM CAI with a bypass on my Neon for 5 years and didn't have a problem. Only time I had a problem was when I didn't have the bypass on it. Sucked a bunch of water into the engine and locked it up right away. $5,000 down the drain in engine work thanks to the Ohio State Engineers drainage project in Amelia. Four lanes of traffic and 3 and a half lanes 3-8" deep of water, yeah guess which lane I had lol. Oh well, live and learn. Build again for another day. I am not sure why you wouldn't be able to put a bypass on the D-tec though. It would only make sense that someone like AEM or someone would develop a bypass that worked on it. I would have gone with a CAI on this car but I got out of the modding scene for a few years and told myself I wasn't going to do anything to the Focus but guess what...the bug bit me again lol. Next step, FI!

I hate to hear that man. I've ran my CAI for over a year now. We get drizzles to cloud bursts here and I've not had a problem so far. I just dodge puddles.

I've been looking at the AEM bypass. It appears, at least to me anyway, that they say it won't work with other brands because of placement if the valve, not getting it connected. The valve replaces the connecter sleeve in the AEM intakes right in front of the MAF....which is also exactly how the duratec intakes are set-up....I think It will work

i want to get the steeda sri , because here in maine its always raining or snowing. but i worry about when i wash my car i always wash the engine bay , i guess i could cover it with a bag , but id worry about getting water in there. is this something i should worry about ? im getting near the 100k limit on stock airbox.