I just had my '98 coupe taken to Breathless Performance's Stage 2 last week, along with a short throw shifter installed and ported throttle bodies. Ernie was great & did the work on short notice (I keep the car in Miami but I'm stationed abroad-- I work for Citibank in Latin America). The seat of the pants difference was impressive.

Unfortunately the very next morning (Saturday) I was driving out of a new hotel in Key Biscayne (the Ritz-- don't drive there if it's raining) & their drainage system is not completely finished yet-- there were around 3 inches of water in one spot & the vette didn't make it-- it hydrolocked. I was driving as slowly as possible but that wasn't good enough. A Jag on the other side of the road didn't make it either, while sedans & econoboxes cruised through.

What are those of you who have done bottom breathing intake mods doing with your car when it rains? After this I'm concerned about cruising along & hitting an unexpected puddle.

On the bright side, this is an excellent opportunity to do more mods since the engine is getting pulled-- I hauled the car over to to Corvette Specialists in Fort Myers & am now thinking about ported cylinder heads & modified headers.

As far as rain, it seems like it would be great to come up with some sort of cover for the bottom breathing hole & an alternate air filter attached just in front of the intake manifold when it rains. Has anybody come up with an alternative? I'd hate to find myself stranded just because of a hard rain when I'm driving around-- I look forward to touring around in this car with my wife.

One final question-- Florida road rule are fresh in my mind (just took the test last week). Removing the cat is illegal in FL. Does cat removal drawbacks in terms of future inspections? If so, what do you do when you get your car inspected?

Thanks & regards,

Steve
lospuig@cable.net.co
R1100S Bogota, Colombia
K1200LT Miami, FL
'98 C5 Coupe, Miami, FL

 

Some people think its realted to an issue with the 97-00 Intake manfold.... I notice your C5 is a 98... so it has that version too. To date, not a single LS6 intake manifold car has hydrolocked, 01+ C5s or previous ones that have had the LS6 added. ??? I'm still driving though the rain in my Vortex equiped car..no problems yet. It is also worth noting that many stock intaked cars have hydrolocked, according to some reports.

 

Sorry to hear of your unforunate accident :(, SJP, I hope all turns out well. You're one of the first I have seen on here that hasn't pointed fingers at certain vendors/tuners, I admire that. Now about your car, drop a 02' LS6 in it

 

Hydrolock????? :confused: You mean that really happens to people? I thought that was all made up! As for the cats, I just took mine off and hollowed them out and put them back on. For inspection purposes, it looks like it's there, but I don't think it would pass a sniffer test.

 

wow, that was a tame response.... :jester

no inspections in FL....doesn't mean they won't come back with a vengence!

Mark

 

Big Carrot,

Hollowed them out ... ?? Interesting idea, why didn't I think about that. How did you do the 'hollow out' ?


[Modified by seanr, 5:33 PM 10/2/2001]

 

{Some people think its realted to an issue with the 97-00 Intake manfold.... I notice your C5 is a 98... so it has that version too. To date, not a single LS6 intake manifold car has hydrolocked, 01+ C5s or previous ones that have had the LS6 added. ??? I'm still driving though the rain in my Vortex equiped car..no problems yet. It is also worth noting that many stock intaked cars have hydrolocked, according to some reports.}

This B.S. :bs has got to stop. What about driving through a very deep puddle did you not get? It was not condensation or intake design. If you put on a bottom breather, your chances of hydrolocking are very high. Cutting the shround allows water to be forced up into the filter. The LS1 is the biggest vacumn cleaner you will ever see. If you put water all aroud the intake filter, it will suck it up regardless of it's design. There are many more 97 - 2K Vettes than Z06's. Did you ever take the statistics of quantity into the equation.

Why don't you take your vehicle with LS6 intake and bottom breather intake and drive it through a deep puddle. You can then test your theory and report the results. You do not have to be a rocket scientist to know that water covering a intake filter will get sucked into the engine.

 

I said "some people"... "think"... I wasn't making a positive claim, da. Reguardless, not a singe 01-02 Vette or any previous one with the LS6 intake has hydrolocked, yet I've heard of at least 20 97-00 ones (stock or not), add those numbers up....still interesting until proven otherwise, especially when some of the hydrolocked people were not driving fast enough for water to be splashing...nor driving hard enough for there to be a great deal of "suction" from the engine.

 

I have no mods on my car yet. The budget is low so I have been looking into mods in detail. I have taken alot of info from the Forum. I talked to Patrick at Vararam industries. They have what seems to be a very good Ram Air system that takes the intake from where the foglamps are located and it keeps the foglamps usable. This is a sealed system and it is almost impossible to get water up there unless you submerse the car...in that case you are F'd anyway.
You may want to change to this system. Their website is vararam.com. Give them a call it may save you big bucks if you get into this situation again.
:hat

 

I have the MTI ram air, and all i do is carry a beach towel with me, and shove it up into the ram air, covering the whole thing. It runs fine, unless you want to mash the throttle, but who needs to mash the throttle when its raining. Just dont forget to take it out if you want to race somebody (DRY pavement )

I got this idea from someone else on the forum..this topic was previously discussed.

Daren

 

I was flipping through the channels last Saturday morning and i saw a show with an NSX on a dyno. It kind of caught my eye so I started watching.

It seems this company has invented a valve that goes between your air intake/filter and the throttle body. What happens is that if the air filter loses air as it is being submerged in water. This creates a partial vacuum which opens the intakes on the new valve supplying air from inside the engine compartment.
They demonstrated it buy fabricating a really long intake with a K&N filter on the end. They shoved the filter under water. As soon as they did, the little intakes on the valve opened up allowing the engine to run. The water rose about a foot in the intake but never any further. When they raised the filter out of the water, most of the water fell back into the tank and the rest just danced around in the tube but very little appeared to get past into the engine.

Did anyone else see the show? If you did, what was the name of the company. I had to leave before the segment was over so i didn't get a name.
This seems like a simple fix for having a bottom feeder but still protecting the engine. The valve was only about 2 inches thick and about 5 inches in diameter. It would definitely fit between the filter/intake and the duct.

[Modified by RedLandRocket, 1:30 PM 10/2/2001]


[Modified by RedLandRocket, 1:31 PM 10/2/2001]

 

FWIW, I have had a filter outer cover on mine for some time now and it seems to keep things dry. I have checked it several times after some heavy rain that came while I was out on the road. In each case, the wedge filter was dry. Having said this, while I am more confident with the outer filter than before, I don't throw caution to the wind either.

 

God.. How many times must we repeat this to people.. NO BOTTOM BREATHERS FOR PEOPLE IN FLORIDA OR TEXAS OR THE CARIBBEAN!! OR FLOOD ZONES!!

Florida is one big flood zone. Sorry to hear. People who read this thread, please spread the news and stop spreading the marketing hype BS that there is no such thing as hydrolock or 'just avoid the puddle' BS.

I don't read air filter threads anymore, so it's up to the rest of you who do read this to pass it on. I've seen 10 hydrolocks in the last 1.5 years on our cars. NOT WORTH 5HP extra! It's a shame to trash our cars.

No worries. Move on. Replace the system with a stock one and pursue a flood damage claim with your Auto Insurance company. Also, there is no emissions inspection in Florida now. Good luck! You'll get past all this stuff.

 

Btw.. Do they pay well in Colombia or need IT workers?

Can you carry a gun? Just curious.. I work for a Latin American pan-regional satellite company right now. I know I can't pack one in the D.F., but would prefer one there, in Caracas/VE & CO. Would love to see the girls sometime. Plenty of Latinas in MIA to go around tho. Just curious. ;)

 

I removed cat on my 95 suburban in 96 and we still had inspections then...it not only passed the visual (she put the mirror under the wrong side of the truck & nodded "OK" "Looks good" and it also passed the sniffer with a wide margin. No worries for now since they discontinued it. Dealers have to inspect & certify before reselling though. :D

 

Quote: "Sorry to hear of your unforunate accident , SJP, I hope all turns out well. You're one of the first I have seen on here that hasn't pointed fingers at certain vendors/tuners, I admire that. Now about your car, drop a 02' LS6 in it "


C5Noir,

I don't consider this the vendor/tuner's fault-- I knew the mod increased bottom breathing & that's what I paid for. I underestimated the power of this vacuum cleaner. The water was not THAT high but it sucked up buckets.

Steve




[Modified by SJP, 8:43 PM 10/2/2001]

 

Quote: "I have the MTI ram air, and all i do is carry a beach towel with me, and shove it up into the ram air, covering the whole thing. It runs fine, unless you want to mash the throttle..."

Sounds like a good idea & a quick temporary fix. 100% cotton presume!

Steve


[Modified by SJP, 8:45 PM 10/2/2001]

 

Quote: "no inspections in FL....doesn't mean they won't come back with a vengence!"

Mark,
Excellent news-- the Cats are coming off. Thanks for the info.

Steve


[Modified by SJP, 8:48 PM 10/2/2001]

 

Quote: "Btw.. Do they pay well in Colombia or need IT workers?
Can you carry a gun? Just curious.. I work for a Latin American pan-regional satellite company right now. I know I can't pack one in the D.F., but would prefer one there, in Caracas/VE & CO."


MellowYellow,

The pay here is on par with neighboring countries & somewhat lower than the US for many professionals. I'm US-based & here on assignment. These assignments last 2-4 years. My last assignment was for 2.5 years in El Salvador, & before that I was in the Dominican Republic. In terms of IT, I've seen that regional companies are developing applications here in Colombia because the quality of engineers here is good & the pay is low/competitive.

In terms of packing, I'm not sure what the laws are but it's not a good idea. If you ever have to unload here you don't want to spend time in the local jails. I have security assigned for me & for my wife & they do the packing for us. Given the lack freedom to move around driving & riding (I like motorbikes), I keep this car and a bike in Miami & we fly up around once a month to unwind in Florida.

The fact that we don't own any cars here (we use company vehicles that have security mods) makes owning a vette in Miami that much easier (buying it used for under $29K with 23K miles also helps in terms of paying for mods).

If your Latam travels bring you this way give me a holler.

Steve


[Modified by SJP, 8:46 PM 10/2/2001]

 

Thx for the feedback and have fun mod'ing the car!
You'll get the hydrolock worked out ok.