Is It Possible To Hydrolock Es300?

[svarog]

Hello, my street is flooded!! about 2 feet, when ivan hits its going to be bad! I had to park at beginning of street today and walk home. Anyway I heard people talking about their engines being hydrolocked and I remember some snorkel exhausts. So is hydrolocking just putting stuff under the engine so no water can come in? And what general tips are there about driving in deep water, what would happen, water gets into muffler and engine stalls or dies forever? Thanks!!

[KLF]

"Hydrolocking" refers to the result of a running engine sucking a large gulp of water into the intake, the "slug" of water gets past the air filter, thru the intake, and into one of the cylinders of the engine. A 4-stroke engine like we have in all of our automobiles assumes that on the compression stroke there is mostly air with a small amount of fuel vapor in the cylinder, so the piston rises in the cylinder with both intake and exhaust valves closed, so that this mixture is compressed for the impending explosion caused by the spark plug when the piston is near TDC. Well, if there is sufficient water in the cylinder (it doesn't take much), when the piston comes up, it hits water instead of air. As you probably know, water is basically incompressible, so instead of the piston compressing the contents of the combustion chamber, it slams into the water, and very very bad things happen in the engine. Usually the result is the connecting rod breaks on that piston, the piston jams into the cylinder, and the stub of the con rod slaps around in the crankcase, causing lots of collateral damage.

I have personally witnessed this happening. The engine will be running fine, and suddenly there is a loud CLANK and that's it -- you're done. It ruins your day, as it usually ruins the engine. Offroaders try to avoid this from happening by installing a snorkle device on the intake, I had one on my Land Cruiser that I just sold:

Hydrolocking has nothing to do with the exhaust.

The answer here is DO NOT drive your Lexus car in 2' of water. It's not designed for this type of situation. Even if you don't end up sucking water into the engine, you will very likely end up with water going past all the seals in the lower part of your drivetrain: transmission, differential, wheel bearings, etc. Not to mention the risk of damage to the electrical system.

Water does VERY bad things to vehicles. Don't risk it.

[ArmyofOne]

unless your car dies or you shut it off in water past your tailpipe, you cant have water come back through your exhaust system to the motor. but hydrolocking is not good.

if you MUST offroad in a lexus, do it in an SUV like an LX470. :D

PS, heres a pic of a hydrolocked motor:

it broke 2 conrods in half (guess which 2???), snapped the crank and shaved 4 lobes off of the cams (dont ask, i have no idea how...)

[SKperformance]

I hydrolocked my wifes car the other night but it was fine since it was only during cranking with the starter which is slow enough to not cause damage.

[ArmyofOne]

I hydrolocked my wifes car the other night but it was fine since it was only during cranking with the starter which is slow enough to not cause damage.

B) you got lucky man...seriously.

a good rule of thumb is if its up to middle of your rims, dont do it.

not he contours intake was directly behuind the headlight, so i could go up to the top of the wheels before i had to worry, but thats the contour, and i knew the car coudl do it...

would you believe i had to do that twice and it didnt leak either time!! B)

[SKperformance]

I was fixing it and the fuel rail starteed dumping gas in the chamber so i hydroed gas not water

[svarog]

Thanks for replies! I thought hydrolocking was a modification to engine to stop water! Not going to ever drive through water again.

[Ernie]

my kid thought it would be cool to take on the mini lake

that formed in the parking lot where he works. It killed

the engine and his buddies tried to jump start it to no

avail. I went back with him and we tried pulling it to start

it and all it did was drag the rear wheels. So we towed it

home. I had him take the spark plugs out, and like a dummie

I was standing right next to the truck when he turned it over.

I got soaked BIG TIME! He spent a couple of hours drying

things out. He got it running, I even took it out of town to

get building materials once. But there was something that

just wasn't quite right. Then one morning he was coming

back from the store, and BAHM! The number four rod went

through both sides of the block. You could see stright through

from one side through the other side. It was a ten year old Toyota with

about 60k miles on it. He wound up with a junk yard engine

that had 130k miles on it. Still running like a champ, no more

puddles for him!