Low level air intake and shallow water

[scotty73]

I dont think those 3 holes are the main problem....they appear to small to pull something serious inside.
Considering how big the air intake hole is when compare to those 3 tiny holes it just seems impossible that trough there water gets in.
I am more fan of that theory that simply waters builds up between bumper and that plastic wheel arch and combine with low air intake system,creates disaster.

Well I was thinking that too but if you stick your hand in front of the air intake with the engine running you might change your mind, the engine really does draw an enormous amount of air in over the course of a few seconds when throttle is applied, so while the holes might appear too small to allow enough water in, if they were submerged for a few seconds (or longer when driving through fords and the like) you could end up with a catastrophic amount of water in the engine.

Steve by cool I meant not 80C plus
Indeed, a water pump mightn't be as good (unless it was combustion powered maybe) but I have no access at all to a wet vac.

A 306 retrofit sounds good but I'm the same. Local breakers are useless and a ripoff

These holes might be small like mentioned above but i doubt you'd need the engine to take in that much water to cause problems, also think of gravity flow it maybe going in a northern direction but once a steady stream is formed the water will continue to fill the engine until there's no water to suck (even with engine off) or dead as the case may be.

All this talk of sucking and blowing I'm off back to bed.

[Ares]

I think that Romans in Senat should have ended all of theirs conversations with sentence :those bloody holes from air intake should be closed

[jonny81191]

Well I just spent 20 mins looking at options for this, the only thing I can think of would involve a hole in the grille and routing some ducting past the radiator where the intercooler would go. But as I intend to fit an intercooler, that ideas out. There's no room between the bonnet and slam panel for a 306 type scoop, I tried one in and the bonnet won't close.

[steve_earwig]

That's a shame I was also wondering if anything could be used from the C5 X7, 407 or 508 but I don't think it would be a go-er as the air box is different and we can't use one as they increased the diameter of the MAF.

There's always Nivek scoop (or a trip to B&Q...)

[Doggy]

That's a shame I was also wondering if anything could be used from the C5 X7, 407 or 508 but I don't think it would be a go-er as the air box is different and we can't use one as they increased the diameter of the MAF.

Doggy's antenae twitched

Did they increase it to 90 mm, by any chance?

[steve_earwig]

Hmm, perhaps I should have said "changed", the 407s are all over the place and some look elliptical

[Busman]

Or, if the weather is that bad, stay in bed?

[steve_earwig]

Reason for absence: It was raining

Went to see my sis-in-law this afternoon, it tipped down while we were there, and it tipped down all the way home. Not necessarily Pug-drowning weather but I was glad I was driving the yoyo rather than my 406 because it wouldn't have been happy with the amount of water that would have been chucked up under bonnet, last time that happened the aux belt was screaming and the alternator went on a go-slow (I saw a VW sharon or whatever it is going the other way with dim headlamps and wipers doing about 1 sweep per minute, hope that's an old diesel mate...). I really need an undertray for it (guard sheet metal anyone?)

[Ares]

you and all your shaloow water topics.

Its raining here for 2 days,roads are like rivers,and just today was the last day my frend had the time to check my 406 suspension.
so i packed and went to him.
On the roads huge amounts of water,this topic was runing trough my head all the time while i was avoiding some deeper pudles of water.
The car was constantly shuutting down and choking.
barely made it.

If somebody find this info usefull
i didnt had that plastic wheel arch near the air intake,so past trough some water and mud was splatting all over the trumphet and some other electrical sockets there.
today i pulled out air filter with fear that its going to be full of mud but it was really clean.
since there was some fairly good portion of mud near the air intake i thought filter is going to be dirty.

[munkymanmatt]

I was thinking about this again today as there was extremely heavy rain here the last few days resulting in some minor flooding. A sign of things to come this winter maybe.

I pulled apart the air intake to have a look and see if there was anywhere to relocate the end of the air intake pipe and I think I've found a spot that will do nicely. I do have some concerns though as it's very close to the radiator. What I was looking for was a high up spot to position the end of the pipe(s) where there would be cool air at a decent pressure when travelling at speed.

The red line in this picture is where I'm thinking of laying the new air pipe. Looking at the radiator from the front of the car, if you lean over the grille and look in past the left hand end of the radiator there is a decent sized gap to stick some pipes in.

You can see a bit of the gap here, where the little patch of light is.


The inner diameter of the standard pipe is approximately 7cm across, so the 'surface' area (there is no actual surface) of the hollow part of the intake pipe is about 154 cm^2
The 'surface' area of a 4cm wide pipe is about 50 cm^2 and a 5cm pipe 78 cm^2, so I will probably use 3 or 4 sections of 4 cm or 2 sections of 5cm pipe, so that around the same amount of air is reaching the air filter.

I'll stick these small pipes through the gap next to the radiator and position them either in front of the gap in the upper grille (the one where the lion badge is) or at the top of the lower grille (where the rad fans are), once they have cleared the narrowish gap next to the rad I'll join them together into a single larger pipe, maybe with a bit of silicone - not sure how well it would stand up to heat though. The gap in the upper grille is actually very small so I'll probably position the pipes near the lower one.

The only problems I can see with my plan are these two
1. The pipes will come very close to the side of the radiator near the top, possibly causing melting and heating the air inside if it travels through slowly enough
2. if it is raining heavily and I'm driving at any sort of speed, drops of water are bound to make it past the grille and possibly end up in the air pipes, defeating the purpose entirely.

For number 1 I'm going to have to check what kind of temperatures the rad reaches after a long drive. Shouldn't be extreme temperatures, I hope! I'll investigate using rubber pipes instead of plastic too, they might withstand constant temperature changes a little better than plastic - or not.

Number 2 I'm not sure about. Only thing I can think of is bending the pipes back on themselves, so that the opening is actually facing the rad. I reckon the airflow will be good enough in front of the grille that the air entering the pipes would still be quite cool if I did this.

Opinions?

[azazel]

Just went through a flood and sucked water in. Think i got away with it with only a wet air filter and loss of power due to the air filter being blocked... I will be much more careful in future about going through deep puddles!!

[GingerMagic]

I think the only alternative is to fit an air sock / pipe like the 2.2Hdi's and Coupes.
These are flexible with no breather holes at the bottom. I was stuck in a flood that was as high as my door bump strips but the car didn't choke - and my air pipe is everso slightly out, maybe an inch from being fitted snug so I think that helped too.

[V6Exec]

Having lost my V6 to the floods, I am cautious, perhaps too catious, with my coupe.

[Rolebama]

I wondered if just undoing the top of the air filter and using a bit of something to keep the filter in place would work.

[OllieNZ]

I removed my filter and air box lid and fitted a cleanable pod filter to the plastic bit the lid slid onto and then just sat the filter in the airbox. Cost all of £8 and didnt need to worry.