Hello I’m actually here to ask a question about my new mustang. I recently bought a 2007 mustang v6 manual. Love the car! Learning to drive a manual in it is fun. I want to make it my daily driver but my concern is that it has a KnN cold Air intake. I live in Michigan where it rains and snows quite a bit. Will the weather cause issues for my car? I was told that if water gets to the filter it could hydrolock the engine.

 

Howdy! Welcome aboard!

There's a bit of misinformation and truth both going on regarding that.

First, the Mustang pretty much comes with a Cold Air Intake by default. That's kind of the point of the remote air filter housing instead of it being right over the engine. The enclosed space also insulates the air inside the box from the heat of the engine as well. So it's not the fact it's a CAI that will cause this. The stock box will actually cause hydrolock too, IF... and this is important...

Second, hydrolock only happens under one circumstance: you 'pour' water into the engine. Or it gets sucked in. That's it. So don't do that. You're golden, drive on.

You hear of people getting their car hydrolocked it's going to be some sort of extreme circumstances or negligence... or both. Like they powerwashed their car without covering the filter. Yep, that'll suck water in right away. Or driving through water, but there's caveats to that too.

In your case... driving through high water about halfway or so up the wheels with the *stock* airbox? Yep, you've got a good chance at hydrolock. Why. The snorkel for the airbox is at/below that line. Depending on things(tm), the snorkel will just suck up the water and in it goes, boom. However, since you have that K&N up there, then your problem is if you drive through water taller than your tires-ish.

Either case you're most likely at that point introducing water into the cabin, and so I'm pretty sure you're not doing that... right? Right.

If it's raining THAT HARD and/or the humidity is 95% or so, then it won't much matter what filter you got, you're getting water into the system. Maybe you shouldn't run the car during that time. There's probably a lot more issues to worry about that your air filter, y'know.

Finally, that K&N, or any open element filter like this, is probably a better bet against water intake than any stock low snorkeled box. The higher you go, the less chance of water goin' in. Or you could actually get a snorkel, which would look sick on a Mustang, I tell ya...



I think you're fine. Worry not. Keep that filter clean and oiled and go on about your business, enjoy!

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TL;DR: Not unless you try really hard.

 

Thank you for responding! I know it’s such a rookie question to ask but Im used to driving things like Pontiac vibes, Chevy aveos and Jeep cherokees. Having this car is new for me. When doing research I didn’t pay attention to the CAI due to the fact that I was so amazed by the car so I have much to learn. At most precipitation wise here in Michigan we get few floods here and there. Winter is unpredictable. At most we get about 1-3 feet of snow on a bad day. But it seems as long as I don’t go trucking with my stang it should be fine.

 

First, welcome to the forum. For a better response to future questions, try posting them in the related sub-forum.

Agreed, the open air box usually is not a problem under normal use. My 2010 GT has a Roush intake (which is open like yours) and was my daily driver for several years, and I drove it through whatever came along, including the highway in the pouring rain. I did sometimes wonder if enough rain would come under the hood and into the intake to cause a problem, but never had any issue. I think the engine can actually ingest a little water, like if the filter got a little wet, without any problem; it just can't drink water in big gulps.

You do need to be careful with things like self-serve car wash; you could potentially spray a lot of water under the hood and into the intake if you aimed the hose just right.

With a good set of snow tires (all 4) the Mustang can do pretty well in snow, as long as it isn't more than a few inches deep because the low ground clearance will become a problem with deep snow.

 

As mentioned by Bert in his response to your post. Any questions/concerns that are technically related belong in the 2005-09 GT or 2005-09 V6 sub-forums. There you will find much quicker responses to your questions which are directly related towards your specific vehicle. That being said, welcome to TMS.

 

Hey, now, i thought I did pretty good on the response time...



They're right, of course.

 

You most certainly did very well on the response time. Therefore I'll fix what was posted previously from quicker responses to more responses

 

indeed, both the timeliness and quality of your response were quite good . . . I should have said "more responses" like m05 said . . . and these days one response ain't bad!