Okay, i have the bypass valve installed on my CAI, what does it take for this thing to suck up water, I'll be fine in normal stormy weather right? I'm getting a little worried as I drive today and its pouring down rain

 

You pretty much need to submerge the lower half of the car to draw water up. It's the type of thing that if it were to happen you probably should not have been driving a car like the S in those conditions anyway.

 

Do NOT drive through deep puddles with it. That bypass valve isn't going to stop any water from getting in your intake. Just be careful, hydrolock is bad, if you see the car infront of you drive through a puddle and the car disappears in a wall of water, you'd better go around and home a different way.

 

here's a link posted by Macgyver regarding water & the bypass valve. Mac is our resident expert and he installed my CIA.

http://forums.s2ki.com/forums/showthread.p...ighlight=bypass

I had mine on my 01 for two years in Ner England (rain, sleet, snow etc etc) with-out the bypass valve and i have never had a problem

 

john busy at work too?

 

Aye, i never intend to drive through any deepness of puddle, just alot of talk abou tsucking up water lately had me paranoid, good to know. Oh btw: am i losing any hp gains by havin the bypass on there?

 

I think so... but again do a advanced search on by-pass valve

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Bass
john busy at work too?

 

Take me as an authoritative source

I've hydrolocked in my GSR. It was a puddle well over a foot deep in heavy rain. The bypass valve would have prevented it.

rain is no problem. water splashing on the filter or a wet filter won't cause problems. First, the filter must be almost completely submerged in water, and second, the air flow must be high enough to pull the water up. If the filter is 50% blocked, you'd need some substantial RPM to get that water up the tube (use a partially submerged straw as a parallel). Conversely, at idle, there may not be enough pressure to suck up water even in a fully submerged filter...the car could just stall.

I have taken a close look at the bypass valve. If the pressure in the tube goes down a certain amount, the valve opens. Think about how hard it is to drink with a big hole in the straw. the bypass valve will work UNLESS you are at very high RPM and throttle. The valve is made of rubber, with foam over it to act as a filter in the .001% of the time the valve would actually be in use.

Now, if you are really worried, you could modify the valve to open sooner or stay open all the time. Just make sure that there is some kind of filter material. Then, you could almost never suck up anything, but the power losses would be gone. I know some say that you lose all power gains by mounting the valve, but I don't think this is true. the valve is closed almost all the time and it won't interrupt air flow. I certainly recommend the valve for an extra margin of safety. it won't cut the chances of hydrolock completely, but it substantially lowers them. Driving through rain is not a problem as I have never heard of a hydrolock case doing that. they are all going through very deep puddles. normal puddles are NOT a problem, it is the DEEP ones that submerge the bumper.