Ram Air and Rain

My question is, how do you guys with ram air hoods drive in the rain?? Everytime I'm forced to drive in the rain my car gets terrible bogging under throttle in low rpms, a shitty idle, noticable loss of power, and dumps tons and tons of gas. This occurs everytime it rains, and persists for a day or two after the rain. I've resorted to duck taping the crap out of my air box, which only delays the problem. It rained yesterday and I've got the same problem again, except this time it isn't going away with normal driving, I think the MAF might have shorted. Any Ideas? How do you guys with aftermarket/ram air hoods get around this problem???

I have the unaltered fact hood, and while i don't drive it all that much, I have never had a problem when it is in the rain.

Mine would do the same thing but as of lately it hasn't done it anymore :dunno: I think it went away after I replaced my O2 sensors, I hadn't driven it in the rain for a year or two and i think that's the last thing I did that could have an effect on it somehow. Do you have any codes?

I haven't had a chance to check yet, but I'm going to tmrw if the problem doesn't fix itself. It's possible that the O2 sensors are the problem. I never had this problem until I got my longtubes on. I suppose it's possible that water could be hitting the sensors, causing a short. But would the O2s be responsible for the car dumping tons of gas? I literally lost a quarter of a tank of gas driving on my way from work in the rain. (about 20miles). The car smelled terrible. Which is why i'm leaning more towards the MAF being the problem.

Yeah, if the o2's arent working, the car dumps fuel into the cylinders to keep it safe. Better rich than lean.

i doubt any rain is getting in, its probably more of a super high humidity problem, my car does it the same when it was a bottom feeder and with the Volant and descreened hood scoop

O2's also control fuel and air being let in by the ecm, so it is possible. They read the fumes after the combustion happens and also return a reading if it needs more gas or less. It's possible that if you were getting a moisture reading in the mix it was trying to compensate with fuel. The ones that don't have much play in the fuel and air department are the rear O2's but I'm assuming those are deleted since you have LT's, the rear ones indicate if your cats are good so that's why they can be tuned out to just permanently say the cats are golden.

yeh my rear's are deleted, and I don't have cats. If it is the O2s, then how do I go about preventing this from happening in the future, short of replacing them every time it rains lol. In the past after a day of driving the car straightened itself out. If it was the O2s wouldn't they just get shorted and be dead?

Maybe you have a vacuum leak...and water is getting in through that.

Possibly, maybe one is just loose? Applying some anti-seize, loctite, or something along those lines in the threads will help too. Check the wires for some exposed materials also.

It's most likely your O2s. If you havea scanner that reads live data and it happens again see if they're working like they should. I've had this problem twice and had to replace my sensors to fix the problem. Really more of a problem with longtubes since they're so low. Keep away from puddles.

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Originally Posted by 35th-ANV-SS

Maybe you have a vacuum leak...and water is getting in through that.

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I actually did have one, that I fixed today, which fixed my a/c problem, but didn't effect the way the car felt.

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Originally Posted by silverWS6

Possibly, maybe one is just loose? Applying some anti-seize, loctite, or something along those lines in the threads will help too. Check the wires for some exposed materials also.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by tatertot91

It's most likely your O2s. If you havea scanner that reads live data and it happens again see if they're working like they should. I've had this problem twice and had to replace my sensors to fix the problem. Really more of a problem with longtubes since they're so low. Keep away from puddles.

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If the problem doesn't go away within a day, i'm gonna run a diagnosis on them and see if there's any sort of voltage fluctuation going on.
I really love how all of this happened the day after I decided to blow 1600 bucks on my MS3 build that was supposed to be going in this weekend. Looks like I can't get the magic stick installed
until I get all this crap sorted out :(

I've never had a problem in the rain, my de-bafffled WS6 hood is mostly sealed. Anyway, since it started with the LTs, it could be fouled O2 sensors.

Water vapor in the exhaust won't affect O2 performance, unless your cooling system is adding coolant to the cylinders (bad head gasket or something serious like that). The O2 sensor does just that, senses how much oxygen in the exhaust, nothing else. The engine would really have to be dumping water thru it to alter the O2 sensor reading by diluting the exhaust flow. If you have some bare wires, then the rain might cause some sensor problems, so check for that.

If the O2 sensor is properly installed and connected, there is no need and you could possibly harm connections by doing something to them by connecting them in ways they are not designed, like using loc-tight. Only supposed to put a little bit of anti-sieze on the threads before installation, and torque is only in the 20 ft-lb range. Too tight can damage the sensor. New headers sometimes can foul O2 sensors, but sounds like that's not your issue.

Are your headers coated? It has been posted on several sites that coated headers seem to mess with the O2's after install.

I was told by TS&P to run with the O2's for about a weeks worth of driving (about 400-500 miles) and then change to new O2's. This allows the coating on the inside to be burned off and doesn't foul new sensors.

nope, i'm using stainless steel OBX headers. The problem seems to have gone away for now, I'm convinced it's the O2 sensors going haywire from the water hitting them. I need to find a way to protect them from the splashing water. Any ideas? Would it be ok if I used header wrapping on them? Electric Tape? Possibly fab a metal housing to block the water?

they should be protected already, the sensor is inside the exhaust tubing. Now if the O2 or the wire harness are cracked then I can see how water would effect them. Maybe you have a wire that is exposed. This would also cause a problem with the sensors.



How long have these sensors been on the car? They need to be replaced around every 70k miles.

I've done the debaffle thing/ram air mod and all that crap and that's how i lost my first motor. Lots of rain and a k&n air filter sucked the water right up the air box into the intake..etc...hydrolocked the motor.

The other day it rained so hard on my way home from work and i felt it cutting out...so i parked it and didn't drive it for 3 days until the rain went away.

But i also have the worst luck in the world.

:shrug:

OK, so here are the slew of codes the car threw. I have no idea how long the O2 sensors have been on the car. I need to figure out whether this is sensor related, or the car sucking up water. I cannot afford a hydrolock. Since the rain the car feels better, but still not 100%, the power isn't all there, and the motor still feels a bit rough, no major bogging though.

P1153- Heated oxygen sensor-Bank2 sensor 1. Insufficient switching
P1133- Heated oxygen sensor-Bank1 sensor 1. Insufficient switching
P0300- Cylinder misfire detected- random cylinders
P0175- Fuel trim bank two condition-ECM has detected a rich/lean ratio on bank two
P0172- Fule trim bank one condition-ECM has detected a rich/lean ratio on bank one
P0152- Circuit Condition (heated oxygen sensor bank sensor 1)

Replace your O2s and clear the codes

^^^what he said.

See what codes return, if any, and this could be the whole problem, the upstream O2 sensors.

O2 sensors are already insulated from any water, if installed correctly, so no need to do anything else in that regard.