FTO AUSTRALIA

hey guys, i notice someone said they killed the engine because of the CAI sucking water in...
does dat mean the CAI unique develop will suck in more water and dust into the engine therefore damaging it?
like...would it suck in water while its raining?
thanks....cause i really want the sound of the CAI so just want to know what is the downside...

The person who killed their engine had the normal airbox and CAI (i.e. what comes standard with the car). They simply went in too deep and sucked water in.

The standard setup works by "sucking" air in. From the standard airbox there is piping that goes around the front of the car and sucks air in from just in front of the radiator.

After market airbox and CAI work on air being forced in through the motion of the car rather than being sucked in. Most aftermarket airboxes, such as the UAS one, rely on the air being forced in and cannot suck it in. So even if the CAI piping was underwater, the airbox could not suck the water in.

ruchi wrote:After market airbox and CAI work on air being forced in through the motion of the car rather than being sucked in. Most aftermarket airboxes, such as the UAS one, rely on the air being forced in and cannot suck it in.

So does that mean that the aftermarket one has to work harder than the stock one ? Ever since I got the UAS CAI installed, I've noticed that the fans turn on more frequently when the car is stopped. This makes sense as no more air is being forced in when the car is not in motion. Could this in any way be detrimental?

This will probably appear obvious once I've said it, but your talking about air being used for two different purposes.

The air that goes through the CAI is mixed with fuel and burnt inside the engine. While the fans on the car draw air through the radiator to lower the temperature of the coolant.

Whether or not you have the standard or aftermarket CAI, when stationary no air will be flowing through the radiators and the fans will need to come on to do so.

thanks ruchi ! u are great help !!!

i've built various CAI's in the past and none of them have ever really brought in a substanital amount of water... i suspect that whoever did this went through a very very deap puddle very quickly....

a little bit of water won't really hurt the engine

the way i see it cold air intakes dont work as good as most will think.

Eg. Person buys dyno time and installs new air filter. Owner happy with result of 10 KW at the wheels. General setting is bonnet open, car is dynod right after a substantial cool down after air filter install. 1 metre fan blowing cold air strait into the engine.

But what happens in the real world? Bonnet down, usually damn hot from the suns rays. Engine bay temperatures from constant stop start driving increase under bonnet temperatures causing heatsoak to all engine areas. While idling the engine is sucking in engine bay temp air, cold air intake is useless at this time. Take off from a stop still sucking in hot air, hit substantial speed, the cold air intake starts to suck in a a decent volume of air, but by this time cold air is rushing through the front grill of engine, and through the underside!

So in my opionion if the POD/Intake isnt properly designed, usually people resort to a think pipe drawing in cold air directly to the POD, with no heat shielding. This medthod would actually lose you power at low speeds and maybe help a tiny bit at decent speeds, but by that time cold air is flowing through the engine anyway!

I can see some confusion creeping in here.

There are two distinct parts here:
1) Cold Air Intake (CAI)
2) Air Box

There are also two different ways to get the air to the air filter:
1) Air sucked in
2) Air forced in

The FTO as standard, has a sealed airbox and a cold air intake (CAI). Because the CAI is mounted sideways air cannot be forced into it, therefore it relies on air being sucked in, but the only way this can happen is if the airbox is a sealed enclosure.

If you do not have an enclosure or if it is not sealed, then air cannot be sucked in from outside the car. The air filter will be sucking in hot air from within the engine bay unless you have a CAI which faces forward and which forces air onto the air filter as you move forward.

Paypaya's comments relate to the second setup even though the standard setup also uses a CAI.

In relation to the person who sucked what into their engine, they had the standard factory CAI (the first setup shown above) and possibly could have avoided damaging their engine if they had the second setup.

yeah im talking about the air forced in system. Considering the air intake on the stock air box is so low i wouldnt be suprised if water most likely getting suched into the engine!

It was me who killed the engine. Ive had my non stock cai setup for a year now and driving through rain was never a problem. There was litteraly a river on the rd and I had no choice to go through.

The engine died half way and I thought to myself "thats not good"

Yeah anyway I think Ill leave my cai on and just be more carefull. Its storm season in Bris atm so if I make it through that I should be ok.

New engine is running sweet as though so Im happy about that.

Apart from a noisy front bearing on the ac....anyone got one?