[bigjeff]

I recently put a HS intake on my car and it seemed to run fine. I drove all the way to CT for Thanksgiving with no problems at all. The night before I left to come home, it was really cold and the next day it warmed up a lot and started raining. My car was hesitating like crazy once I got on the road like it was running out of gas. This lasted for about a half mile when I turned around to go back to my friend's house to see what was wrong. By the time I got back it was fine. I drove all the way back to PA through some heavy rain with no problems. Did I suck some water? Is it possible that due to the temperature change and humidity that I got condensation on the inside of the intake pipe? Or could this be something totally separate due to the rain? Also, should the HS filter that came with the kit be oiled? They said absolutely nothing about how to care for the filter. Thanks.

 

[Mike 94PGT]

Here's my guess: the super cold temps followed by the warming trend and rain led to the formation of condensation in the ignition, especially in the distributor cap, in the same way a cold glass of water has condensate form on the outside during a warm day. It probably took the heat of the engine to dry out the components so that the water stopped shorting the HV.

The engine is pretty tolerant of inhaling non-liquid water; vapour, mist etc...it probably doesn't care much.

If the filter is a K&N style with a gauze-type element, then yes, the element must be oiled before use. Gauze (or even open-cell foam type filters) without oil are not filters at all.