THSCC Forums

As I've feared for some time now, the motor in the CRX finally let go in a big way. I went to Wilmington this past weekend to run with the NCR group and the motor made the last runs of its life. <sniff>

It actually happened on the way back from the event after getting caught in a *huge* thunderstorm. Apparently there is an intersection in Wilmington that is notorious for flooding and the locals avoid it like the plague when there is a sudden heavy rain. Not knowing any of this, myself and a couple of friends tried to navigate the intersection on the way back to the beach house.

The event didn't start until 4pm so by the time we were heading back it was dark and visibility was pretty bad with the rain and foggy windshields. There was about 2 feet of standing water that we couldn't see in the intersection and needless to say when we hit it, it was quite a surprise. The CRX cut off immediately and I had a strong suspicion what had happened. We pushed the car into a parking lot and I pulled the spark plugs. Sure enough, every cylinder was filled with water but since we were going so slow (< 15mph), I thought we might have gotten lucky.

After a rather futile attempt at draining the cylinders, we had the car towed back to the beach house where we tried to crank it (with no plugs) just for grins. Each cylinder looked like Old Faithful as water shot 3 feet into the air! There was a racket coming from the motor and we suspected that a rod was severely bent from the hydro-lock. I turned it over one more time and it suddenly sounded OK leading us to think it may be actually fire. Since it was nearly midnight by this time, I decided to leave it until the morning thinking maybe it would dry out a little more by that time.

I got up fairly early on Sunday morning and went outside to check out the car. As soon as I opened the hood, it became obvious why the last attempt at cranking it sounded like it freed up. There is a hole the size of an ice cream cone in the #1 cylinder wall. Doh! Thankfully a friend that was down there (whose Miata was driven through the very same intersection at the same time as the CRX) came back to the RTP area Saturday night and was able to get a truck and tow dolly to come rescue the car on Sunday.

The ironic thing about the incident is that I just ordered a new motor for the car about 2 weeks ago. It should be here within 2 weeks so the car will be back on the road very shortly. Talk about good timing!

So what happened? 4 words: AEM cold air intake. The filter for the intake is about a foot off the ground and the engine sucked up water like a wet/dry vac. They sell a bypass valve designed to prevent something like this but what were the chances, right? Needless to say, I ordered the bypass valve Sunday morning. If anybody is currently running this intake (or anything like it) and you aren't running the bypass, I highly recommend thinking about adding it.

Luckily my friend's Miata had a much higher intake and didn't suffer the same fate as the CRX. It was even luckier that I happened to be traveling with some people back from the event since I'm usually by myself. They had some friends in the area who were able to come out and help us as well as deal with getting a tow at 10pm on Saturday night. It would have made for a *really* long evening trying to deal with this in a strange town by myself. I didn't even have a cell phone with me...

Note to self: get a new cell phone!

Jim

edit: whoops, meant to put this in the lounge, sorry...

That sucks Jim, but at least you had the new motor on the way.

_________________
Todd Breakey
STS 42 - 1992 Sunburst Miata
Dammit!
"You souldn't play leap frog with a porcupine. You might get hurt." - Eliza

Moved.

_________________
Diane (Hall) Bundas
1992 Spec Miata #48 - 1997 Chevy Tahoe - 2007 Honda Civic Coupe

A lot of people install a K&N "breather" filter high up in the system to alleviate this; glad everything is working itself out. :rinde:

_________________
Has no responsibility whatsoever.

Jim,

Sorry to hear about your car. If I had known what had happened, I would have helped you out.

Anyways, it was good to see to you and hope you had a good time at the event despite what happened to your car.

Jeff

_________________
GS - 17 Honda Civic Si
STS - 91 Honda Civic Si
S04 - 00 Subaru Impreza 2.5 RS

http://www.kestrelracing.com

Bummer Jim!

You're not alone with this problem. Some aftermarket kits for the C4/C5 are designed like that. You cut the radiator shroud and the snorkel (pun intended) dips down in front of the radiator to grab clean air from the bottom. Since Vettes are bottom breathers this does work and provides a nice HP boost. But there is more than 1 person who has gotten themselves into hydrolock for the same reason. The water didn't look that deep...

_________________
http://www.greywinds.com

Jim,

I have no idea whether it would apply to your new engine or if your engine builder would make this mistake, but you might want to check out Andy Hollis's post on SCCA Forums regarding a protest in STS2 at the Denver Pro. Something about a commonly used thinner head gasket in Hondas. .048 vs .072 resulting in about one point of compression increase, a cam timing change for the good, and 3 -5 HP. If it applies to your engine you don't want to get it by mistake. Apparently it is visually obvious.

Obviously 3 to 5 hp in your ride today wouldn't make a difference but apparently it is a big deal in STS

Dick (who knows NOTHING about Honda's)

_________________
Dick Rasmussen

FS 50 2018 Mustang GT

Thanks Dick.

I was aware of the entire situation regarding the Seelig's car. I was in Mineral Wells when the illegal head gasket was first discovered (by somebody other than Andy Hollis). Andy and a few others looked at nearly every STS and STS2 car in impound (including mine) at the time to try and figure out what was going on.

I talked with Andy for a while at the DC Pro and the whole situation pretty much cemented my decision to go with Redshift Motorsports for a new motor. Chris at Redshift knows as much about these motors as anybody and more or less guaranteed me that it will as good as possible while staying on the legal side of the fence.

Jim