It’s Not Always Good To Suck: AEM Cold Air Bypass
By Kevin Whipps
A buddy of mine once owned a Honda Civic that was pretty tanked. It sported a cold air intake, headers, and a nice suspension that kept it hovering around the ground pretty low. One day on his way to work, he drove through what he thought was a puddle, and next thing he knew he was lug nut deep in water, and his cold air was now an upside-down snorkel. Thinking he was going to hydro-lock his car, he turned off the engine and coasted to the side of the road. He was lucky — nothing ended up happening to the motor, but it very easily could have. Fortunately though, that doesn’t have to be the case anymore.
AEM offers an Air Bypass Valve for all models of cold air intakes. If your filter should happen to become submerged, the bypass valve will kick in and reroute air through the filtered inlet on the valve. It’s a universal design, and it comes in various sizes so you can put it on any cold air you want to. Just mount the Air Bypass Valve inside the engine bay and away from any potential water hazard. Now, all you’ll suck is air.
Air Bypass Valve [AEM]
March 4th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
I could have used one of these back in college!
My old ‘94 Mustang had the filter relocated to the fender well for cooler air. One day, I was leaving campus (in Charleston, SC — a very flood-prone area) in a storm, and traffic was backed-up at a stop light. That’s when I started seeing the water rise… Before I knew it, it was up to the bottom of the doors. Traffic started moving, so I thought I was home free. Not quite… I guess when the car started plowing through the water, it created a wave in front of the tyre in the wheel well, and my motor decided to suck it all up and quit running.
I had a few friends help me push it to a nearby parking lot where I started the surgery. I ended up having to pull all of the spark plugs out, then put the car in 5th gear while we pushed the car through the parking lot. That managed to shoot enough of the water out through the spark plug holes that, after reinstalling them, the engine fired right up! Luckily the engine was still cold when all of this happened. I can imagine that a bunch of cold rain water filling up those hot cylinders wouldn’t have been too good! It ran perfectly fine until the day I sold it though!