keydiver said:
Most of the time I have seen cars stalled in high water it is because they inhaled too much water into the air intake.
Sure, but then you need to explain to me how my car started right up after the Jeep behind me pushed me out of the puddle, some 30 seconds after my car stalled. (It took about 30 secs for me to get out of the car, waded back to him, asked him to push me, then get back in my car. Maybe one minute, tops.)
keydiver said:
They are usually very low, right behind a headlight where they can scoop up water too easily.
All the cars I have seen and worked on have their air filter in the higher part of the engine compartment (1983 Rabbit GTI, 1995 GTI VR6, all air cooled Beetles and Porsches, all BMW fours and sixes, etc.) or right on top of the engine (2005 MkV GTI, any Detroit V8, etc.). In fact, the air filter, being one of the few parts serviceable by the casual car owner, has always been up high in the engine compartment. I invite you to point to examples of engines that has their air filter "very low". I'd be surprised if you can point to more than a handful. I find the notion that any engineer would situate an air filter where it can "scoop up water too easily" not very believable.
keydiver said:
In many cases it will not just stall the motor but hydrolock it, so you can't even crank it over. If you do it with too much power applied it can even break rods or other engine parts, since you can't compress water.
Or, the other thing that may have happened to you was water on old spark plug wires, which will make them arc over to ground or each other.
See my umpteenth note above about the car starting right up within a minute of stalling.
Ingineer said:
Several things; the 1983 GTI had a distributor. No points, a reluctor and transistorized coil switch, but still a distributor and spark plug wires. This is the most likely cause for stalling.
It does have a distributor. I stand corrected. However, 1. it's a Hall effect distributor not a mechanical one, and 2. it's at about the cam cover level, i.e. immediately underneath the hood. If it got wet enough to stall the engine, I would have expected to see Noah's Ark come drifting by. Also, I haven't heard a good explanation as to why, if the problem was electricals getting wet, the car would start up within less than a minute, far less time than needed to dry out any amount of water significant enough to have caused a stall in the first place?
Ingineer said:
Exhaust back pressure with a foot or 2 of water will not cause any piston engine to stall, this is definitely not the cause!
-Phil
Whether an engine would stall in water depends on so many factor that I cant't see how one can categorically say, yes they will (as I did in the beginning) or no, they won't. It depends on: the engine's size, the RPM (a 6L V8 moves a lot more air a lot more forcefully at idle than a 1.8L inline four), length and volume of exhaust tract, probably even the engine's state of tune (how much overlap in intake and exhaust valve timing, etc.).
keydiver said:
Most of the time I have seen cars stalled in high water it is because they inhaled too much water into the air intake.
Nekota said:
Add to that the water spray from the fan, wheels and in particular a burst of steam from hot exhaust manifold and you have killed the oxygen supply to the ICE.
I don't buy that either. Water injection to reduce detonation is common in drag racing. I don't believe "a burst of steam" is enough to stall an engine. And I don't know what kind of cars you're referring to, but I can't think of any street-going car that has its radiator and its fans, or any kind of fans, below its sill line.
keydiver said:
By the time you extract the vehicle from the water, it's recovered from the ingress of water vapor and ready to run.
Within 30 seconds to one minute?
