Last night my 95 with cold air intake shut off while driving through a flooded street (it didn't look that deep, maybe I caught somebody's wake. anyway). Naturally I assumed I had hydrolocked and blown a hole in my engine. I did see some oil in the water but that could just be residual from my pan (I've never done the intake seals so I've got a nice used oil collection on my driveway). I pushed it off the road and when I came back this morning I found no evidence of hydrolock. I couldn't see any debris in the road and from what I could see had no holes in my motor. I had to feel around where I couldn't see. Anyway I fired it up and it ran, albeit missing a few cylinders. I also had normal oil pressure. I would not expect to maintain oil pressure with mechanical failure due to hydrolock. I also could idle in drive but if I try to accelerate, it shuts down. I haven't completely ruled out mechanical failure, but that seems to be ignition related. That leaves me to ask: Could hydrolock have caused an internal failure that would make it act that way without giving a tell-tale noise, loss of oil pressure or other symptom? Or, could the opti-spark distributor have failed? I'm just short of 100,000 miles and have never had to replace the distributor, so I'm not 100% on what the symptoms are. Any input is greatly appreciated.

 

If the motor was hydrolocked, it would be just like the name implies: locked due to uncompressable water in the motor. It wouldn't be running. If you can, get a hair dryer on the opti and try to dry it out some. It probably got a little too wet.

 

Hydrolocked motors can "unlock" themselves if the engine creates enough force to crack the block and let the water out, but I don't know how if at all it would run under those conditions. Just trying to cover all my bases.

 

he is right. My LT1 was hydrolocked (caused by a constantly open fuel injector), so one of the cylinders was totally filled up with fuel when I shut off the car......when I came back to start it up.......crrrrrrrskrrrrreeeeech......my single stock starter became two mini starters.