Short ram vs. CAI

[X Factor]

Hey guys,

Wasn't sure where to put this so I put it in general.

After doing my Intake this weekend and posting about it on the 4G forums, here is some of the feedback I got from them regarding CAI vs. Short ram.

After talking about it in person with Scheides, Kevin, Chris, Matt D etc they all agreed i'd be best with short ram, but these guys seem to disagree.

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"cool glad you love it now, but as far as the cai goes your friends are dumb. Sorry to say but you would need to hit way more then just a decent sized puddle to cause any problem. More like submerge the filter like a submarine and rev the piss out of the car. Eh to each their own though, all I know is I like the air coming off the raod a lot better then I would my hot engine, but what do I know

peace"

"dry isnt the problem. My point was you actually really need a lot of water sucked into the cai to cause a problem. if the filter gets a little wet or heaven forbib to run through a puddle that gets it all wet, you should be fine.

the problem really comes in if you are driving through a ton of water and have the filter submerged. if it is submerged in water and you are driving, you a sucking water right ip into the engine. this will of course cause an issue. puddles heavy rain etc should not"

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Biggest reason i'm asking is it's going to be raining pretty much all week, so would it maybe be a smart idea to convert it to CAI for the week and see how wet the filter gets after driving to work and then back home all week?

Seems to me like with the CAI your only protection vs water is the filter opposed to having quite a bit more distance from the ground with short ram, if it gets wet enough the engine is going to pull water right off it and straight into the engine... does it take a good amount to do damage, or is just a little going to cause damage?

I do want to be careful because the car is new (to me at least, it's like 2+ years old) so I don't want to get fucked by something like a hydrolock. But at the same time these guys are claiming even puddle splashes on it wouldn't effect it.

And then of course i've seen at LEAST 2 people come onto the forums going "HOLY SHIT WTF HAPPEN TO MY ENGINE!?!!? IT RAINED AND NOW IT WONT START????" ... and shit like that makes me very uneasy.

[Kracka]

Simple rain and a wet filter won't harm your engine, but if the filter gets fully submerged it will suck water in and hydrolock aka destroy your engine. If you're careful about it, do it. I had my air filter in the stock sidemount intercooler location (down low in the bumper off to the side) on my '94 Talon and it was fine in heavy rain, but if I saw a puddle in the road I found another way home. If you do it be very careful of standing water and make sure no water from above can drain in the filter. The S2k's have a hood water drain that drips directly onto the AEM CAI filter and a few people have hydrolocked that way, but now AEM designed some sort of umbrella to protect the filter from above.

[Kracka]

Oh, just to add one more thing, it wouldn't surprise me if you're actually losing power on the road with a short-ram b/c you're sucking in hot engine bay air (the filter sits directly behind the radiator). The dyno won't show this loss since all dyno testing is done with the hood open. Your stock intake has some ram-air snorkels to supply the engine with cooler ambient temp air.

[Matt D.]

Keep in mind that water doesn't compress like air. When the piston is at the very top of the compression stroke there is an unbelievably small amount of space left and it would take very little water to get in there to cause bad things to happen.

[scheides]

Yup, like mattD said, its not like it will suck in a gallon of water all of a sudden and hydrolock it. It only takes a small amount of water to get all the way up in there for that to happen.

And no we're not dumb, we're just advising what we would or wouldn't do and being conservative about it.....the guy that posted that, where does he live? If he lives somewhere in the south, specifically California, well the weather is a lot nicer there, that's all :)

Put it on if you want to, I'm not gonna stop ya!

[HiImBrian]

I had a cai on my last mazda mx6 and it stuck out a little bit under the car. So I was gettin really good cold airflow if you ask me. I drove it in a storm once and hit a puddle...There was no more driving for me that night. I took the cai off and looked to see how much water might have gone up it, and it was barley damp in some places. thankfuly my motor survived and we were able to pump the little bit of water out. But I've learned my lesson about low filters and I would advise you, by my own experience, not to do it unless you plan on not driving in the rain.

[TkrPerformance]

the evo sucks in the rain also and it just has the filter in the stock spot were the opening is on the hood and it takes in water like there is no tomorrow

[JET]

You can use one of the AEM bypass valves if you are worried about water. If there gets to be too much vacuum they suck in through that instead of the filter. Seems like a good concept and it should work.

[Kracka]

Those bypass valves generally cause a power loss on S2k's vs. stock intake, so research it a bit more before trying one.

[TkrPerformance]

it looked like it sat in the bumper above the plactic under tray so it might be ok the way it is.