J-(Chicago)

How many ounces of water or coolant through the carburetor does it take to hydrolock a Small block?

The Scenario would be if you chop or blow a radiator hose and it sprays all over your carburetor.

A local guy with a 74 nova was just telling me how he forgot to hook up a heater core line and it coated his engine bay.

Got me to thinking.... How far could the envelope have been pushed if his wife was driving and had tried limping it back home a few miles?

Oldsguy

I would think the engine would die for lack of proper air/fuel ratio before hydrolock would occur.

BILL DEMMER

unless you intentionally, rapidly dump a a pint of water down the carb; you have no worries. with the air cleaner installed you couldn't get anywhere near enough water in, unless you drown a running engine. water spraying onto the exterior of a carb. will only get the carb. wet, on the outside.


bill

csstrux

I know this is an older post, but thought it interesting to note, and says something about the durability of the olds engine. Back in my young and dumb days of living "frat house style" with a bunch of "friends". I was away from the house when a traditional kid type event was taking place back home.(kegger) A "friend" needed some wheels, for what reason I have no clue as he was drunk off his A#$ and someone decided to bring a shopping bag full of the stuff you make funny cigarettes out of, hence my abcence. Any way he needed some wheels, and seens I was gone, and he wanted to get where he was going in a hurry, he "borrowed" my car '74 cutlass collonade. Admittedly nothing special, but the nicest and fastest car of anyone in the groupe. And I really loved that car. Any how he gets to some bank about 15 miniuits from the house before he passes out. From here I put the story together from the newspaper, police report, and his appology story. He passed out in the bank parking lot with the car running, behind the building, lights burning. Perfict set up no? Cop sees this and decides to investigate, seens its like one in the morning. He takes out his trusty flashlight and taps on the drivers side window. My "friend" comes to, sees the badge, and panics. Well the car IS running, and he does not want to get into "Trouble" so he does the logical thing. He stands on the gas and throws the car in gear. He left marks all the way around the bank, acrost the parking lot , out into the street for another hundred feet of so ! In my life I never layed so much rubber as he did with that car, I still don't know how he did it. He proceded at speeds in excess of 90 acording to the muskeego police down county hiways, and through residential neighborhoods in this fasion until the entire police force is on his tail. I have no idea how long this took, but he covered the entire town and then some before he finally gave up on roads. I dont know how a sober man could have wedged this car between two trees aprox 6 feet apart may be seven, but walkin off the path I would not have guessed the car would fit. at 80 pluss according to the sherrif whos yard he was barreling through between those trees without leaving a mark mind you. Into a "wheet field" according to my "friend" that was actuslly a retaining wall, a pier and finally lake muskeego.Dukes of hazzard style. Nobody knows for sure what all happened from there but he was haulling and had his foot in it when he hit the water. When I finaly found the car the next day, because of the news. My dad and I went out dumped the oil where she sat pulled the plugs blew her out put her back together and drove her out of the impound yard. We then proceded to go through it replacing all fluids and fixing alot of the crap that got screwed up, with barely a word between us. I am to this day glad I wasn't stupid enough to pull a stunt like this myself. If looks could kill. Any way the car ran for years after the incident seemingly none the worse for wear, save the cracked grill. Man I was when this happened. Now?. Ah the follies of youth. Hope this lifts somebody's spirits.

marcar1993

I have one thing to add to this old post.
To hydro-lock an engine, you need more water in the cylinder than there is compression space. If you have 50 cc's of water in a combustion space of 48 cc's the water will stop the piston with 50cc's of space, causing hydrolock. In the same example if you get 46 cc's of water into the same 48cc space it would *probably* just miss that cylinder OR stall the engine.

Redog

I know people with Cold Air Intakes say the filter has to be completely underwater to hydolock the engine, but I never took the chance with the Alero's CAI, It only sees CAI at the track, other than that it's all WAI.

As the the question at hand, I would think the car would overheat before hyrdolock could occur and the heat from the engine would turn water to steam before being indisgted

mugzilla

I've heard that flex fuel cars have hydrolocked because water will mix with ethanol ...