I was driving around the other day during a big rainstorm and sucked up a little water in the cold-air intake I have in my front bumper. It ran crappy for a little bit, but smoothed out after a minute or 2. The car ran great that whole day, but overnight things got worse.

I noticed on my safc that the airflow meter was reading unusually high at idle, and too low at higher rpms, which corresponded to the numbers I was getting from my wideband. (NA 88) It was stupid... like 10.4 at idle and high 15.xx at high rpms!!! I popped the airflow meter off and checked operation. Apparently the aluminum corroded slightly, and now the flap moves with a slight grinding/squeaking noise, and doesn't close all the way when released. I cleaned it really well with airflow meter cleaner and silicone spray lube. It made things only slightly better.

Is it possible to disassemble the meter to clean and lubricate moving parts without entirely screwing it up?

 

you could buy one from me.. i have 2 s4 AFM's sitting in my garage...

 

No. I wouldn't try it unless you knew exactly what you were doing, otherwise you are potentially making a problem even worse. Just get a used one off a here, like above said.

 

The aluminum corroded from a splash of water? Was the water 1/2 acid?

Sounds more a bushing wore out on the flapper and it was a coincidence.

 

i want to see this air filter set up that sucked in water from a puddle.....Pics?

 

So... finally, after much time has passed, I was able to get back to my old FC. I finished the engine build on my Tiburon, and just got the time last week to pull the AFM apart. The worst thing that could happen was that everything fell apart when I opened it, and had to buy one anyways, but then again, I was well on that path to begin with.

So, I open it up. The big aluminum plate came off first. Yep, it's corroded. Somehow, that charleston water I sucked up really messed it up. So after a little cleaning (AFM cleaner) and lubricating with silicone spray, a little working of the flapper, and things got better. I pulled the plastic cover off the electronic side, cleaned it out with electronics cleaner, and (again) used silicone spray to lubricate things inside there too. Good thing it's got a high dielectric strength too.

Anyways, it's working great now, so I figured I'd post the results to let anyone else who's experienced similar problems know that it's not a difficult or daunting task.

Here's the pics of the intake that I have. It's in "experimental" stage still, but it works quite well. The duct insulation is great at keeping the intake temps down too. I need one of those nice tidy intake blankets that summit sells. I had to remove the windshield washer bottle and cut a hole where it poked through. The relocation of the washer bottle has yet to happen. The intake bits come from ebay. A mistake on my part, ordering a cheap CAI for my tiburon worked out, since the pipe is 3" in diameter.

intake pic 1
intake pic 2
intake pic 3
intake pic 4

And just for kicks and giggles, here's the fan shroud that I made from fiberglass. It works wonders too.

Fan shroud 1
Fan shroud 2
Fan shroud 3

 

diggin tha shroud!

 

nice work on the shroud. I've done some fiberglass stuff in the past and can appreciate the work.

the intake would make me very nervous for the very reasons you had problems. I'm in southern indiana where storms can blow in off the flatlands. Too boot the city I live in has grown faster than it's infastructure can support. The sewer system is really bad and just about every heavy rain the street drains backup on several of the roads I have to drive on.

 

I'd just get a new one from the j-yard or borrow a friends for a few hours and see if that helps. I'm lucky enough to have 2 working ones here, though.