I wonder what the side effects of leaving the bag wrapped around the airbox would be vs. allowing some water to dribble out the airbox drain holes...

 

A moderate power loss when the engine sucks it in through the snorkel and it gets stopped by the air filter.

Followed by catastrophic engine failure after the next rainstorm since the plastic bag will block the drain hole, allow water to pool, and then tidal-wave into the engine and hydrolock it.

Just kidding. The first part is true though.

 

I will do this when I put in the motor mounts in the next week or two. I will do that more to judge how confident I am that the hole can't become blocked than to see how it flows under perfect conditions, but I will definitely check this out.


While I appreciate your opinion, I think it could have been phrased better. It takes about 2 seconds to put the large bag (it is not a sandwich bag) securely over the entire snorkel and it's impossible to forget because I put the keys in the ziploc box at the same time.

This 996 replaced a Maserati coupe. The problem with the Maserati is that the air intake is very low to the ground and the engines can hydrolock if you hit a puddle wrong. The result of hydrolocking is that the engine is toast. Fortunately, that never happened to me, but it was something I always kept in the back of my mind. The Ferrari 612 has the same issue. The 996 situation is obviously completely different, but the effects of hydrolocking are so severe that I'm willing to invest the 5 seconds it takes to add and remove the bag. YMMV.

 

Wait so your keys go in the air intake too? This gets more interesting all the time...

 

Then again, we used to put tarps on our tanks when they were outside...bullet proof, EMP hardened tanks that could ford rivers, covered with tarps just in case they got wet.

The best explanation I could get was that we used to put tarps on horses, so...

 

I dreamed a dream my snorkel intake would never diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie

 

Vying for the title "Most entertaining thread of the month"

 

Let's see.... 996's have been around for 20 years. Has there been even one reported case of engine failure due to washing a car without a snorkle condom?

 

 

This is a good point.

Either you are incapable of understanding English or you are intentionally twisting words to try to synthesize a statement I never made. Either way, it's sad.

I get that you don't agree with my approach, and I acknowledge that it likely isn't necessary, but it literally takes 5 seconds to do, so there really is no meaningful argument against it.

 

Some of you need to wrap your heads in tin foil so ridiculous ideas won't seep in. I've got a heavy v8 on an engine stand in the garage, a few cranks on their sides, at least 5 different kinds of motor oil, and other more important things to not worry about.

 

The problem with your statement above, and all of the non-constructive comments in this thread, is that this is an automotive forum. The entire purpose of the forum is to discuss details that non-automative enthusiasts probably wouldn't care about. If there are topics you don't care about -- and there always will be some -- then just don't ****ing post. To come into a thread and label it as "tin foil hat theory" totally kills the discussion and kicks off a snowballing stream of non-constructive comments.

For your "crank" tin foil hat theory, do you know how much sag it would take for a crank to perform poorly at 7000 RPM? Almost none. People spend thousands of dollars and invest many hours of time to balance their motors because it increases horsepower and increases durability. If the crank isn't perfectly aligned, the car will not run as well as it should because there will be an imbalance that shouldn't be there and, even if you can't feel it, the engine will wear itself out much faster than it should. If you are going through all the work and expense of rebuilding an engine down to replacing the crank, don't you think you would want to know if placing the crank on its side will affect it? Even if you are personally replacing a crank and you aren't curious about the topic, that's your own decision to ignore it, but don't pollute the thread by attacking the person who clearly wants to know. Does a crank sitting on its side actually harm it? I don't know. Is it an important topic? It absolutely is if you are the person that is in the middle of that job. It's also of interest to many others who may not be replacing a crank but simply want to learn. It's also important to somebody who might be having a shop rebuild their motor.

If you don't care about a topic, don't post. If you think a topic is too trivial to discuss, don't post. If you don't have something constructive to say, don't post. But don't demean other people's topics because you don't understand the implications of the question.

The same applies to this topic. If you understand what happens inside the engine with hydrolock (which results in bent rods, bent valves, internal corrosion, and an engine that is basically toast), then you should automatically understand that it is reasonable to discuss the topic, even if there is only a 0.1% chance that something you could do could make that happen. If that discussion isn't of interest or concern to you, you should know what to do at this point: don't post.

 

I understand the implications of the question but I don't care, think it is too trivial to discuss and have nothing constructive to say, so I won't post.

 

Crap. I'm doing something wrong.

 

I read a post on here a while back where a guy covered the whole intake with a soft rubber mat. I thought it was a good idea, probably not needed but certainly couldn't hurt so I bought a rubber mat and cut it to size for when I wash. The other reason I wanted to do it is b/c I have a 996TT and the wing hydraulics I wanted to protect as much as possible, plus I just didn't like the thought of soap running in there and staying even though it isn't that big a deal. But hey I'm **** about washing/detailing lol. Only takes a second to put the mat on, and I just waterless wash the vent grill when done, works for me.