svtdubs

Ive seen a lot of people power wash their engine bay, but he just sprayed his motor off with a hose and now it misfires/ruble/hesitates at low rpm.

I searched a bit saying water can get into the plugs and foul them... any first hand experiences with this?

TT6SPDSC

Ya, it can be a real pita. He may have to get the codes cleared it it's thowing them. Also, if there's a lot of water in the plug holes he'll need to remove the wires and attach a small hose onto a shop vac and suck the water out. Then dry everything throroughly and reassemble.

svtdubs

will it hurt if he keeps driving his car? I told him he should be fine if he drives it

TT6SPDSC

Well, if it's really bad I would avoid driving it untill it's fixed. I had my car detailed a while back and this happened, but it was very minor. I let the car idle for about 15 minutes, cleared the codes, and it was fine.

streetracr

yeah you got water down in there, but use a shop vac or an air hose with a blower nozzle attachment that you can stick in there some and blow the water back out and blow off the ends of the plug wires.

ki_soarer

when this happened to me, all i did was rev the hell out of the car cause i was pissed, and it got hot enough that the water simply evapeorated after about 10 or 15 min.

SCguy58

I work at a Ford dealership and our mechanics said that they would not recommend spraying down your engine, but if you did, make sure the engine is running to evaporate the water.

sc250tt

yup when you wash the engine you must have it running and make sure you cover the distributor and do not spray too close to the plugs ,igniter ond /or intake .when these parts get wet its i pita

SC300TT!

I had same issue. I had my car repainted and the body shop carelessly washed my engine bay. When I drove it home, it was misfiring a little at first then it became so bad that it seems my car was running off of three cylinders. I then noticed a burning smell coming from under my car...my cats were glowing red (A product of severe misfire) Problem: water in spark plug wells. Solution: remove all plug wires and blow dry with compressed air hose or hair dryer....but it may take awhile. I stuffed toilet paper in my wells to absorb some of the water and then used the air hose.

Note: Bad Misfire = deteriorating cats-so you must avoid driving it till you fix.

Good Luck

sickid

i did the same thing i sprayed my engine with gunk cleaner and then hosed it off. i tried to have it run to heat up and evaporate the water but in the end i had to take the throttle body and intake off to get to the plugs to dry them and i used a brake bleeder to pump out the water. since i had access i did new plugs and wires car runs fine. oh and i tried letting it evaporate for 3 days before and it did not so best bet take it apart more time consuming then anything else.

svtdubs

I took the hard *** approach to his car. Since the engine was running when he sprayed it, he told me just to beat on it and see if it would evaporate so I took it out to our normal race spot and did a few 140 pulls (6 or so) and it started to go away so I did a few more and its fine. Thanks guys!

ki_soarer

hahaha, i told you so.

philauldridge

Of course, another obvious place to look is inside the distributor cap. Condensation can form there from the water bath, and then has no place to go, so can ground the distributor output.