Waterproofing V8's?

[WishIhadaLandy]

just how waterproof can you get them?
as good as a diesel or will they never be that water proof what ever you do to them?

All those with heavily modded V8's, how far can you go in water and what have you done to your's to make them swim betta?

[beast5680]

i fitted an upturned plastic 5ltr container over the distributor after some cutting about and put the coil inside an old water bottle , spray the plug leads with castrol chain wax as well helps and removing the engine fan and fitting electric ones you can turn off stops the fan blasting water all round the engine bay
there are lots of ways of waterproofing some better than others but thats what i did cheap and easily which stops mine cutting out at the inopertune moment :D  as it used to be a right pig in water

[Skibum346]

WishIHadALAndy,

You can get silicon rubber "boots" for the coil & distributor from a place that advertises in LRO (Forgotton the name of it!) but for ultimate protection you need a military waterproofed dizzy & coil.

I happen to know that Douglass Motors in Wolston near Coventry has a set.

It's basically a metal bodied dizzy & coil that is waterproof with leads between them and to the plugs that are encassed in stainless steel wire woven covers. Don't ask me how this helps keep weater AWAY from electricity but it's supposed to work!

Good Luck

[Henry Webster]

Two ways of looking at this - Petrols rely on electrics, electrics don't like water, you can mitigate the problem by some waterproofing, but you can't easily submerge the engine!  If they swallow water or electrics get wet then they stop and you need to dry them out before restarting.

Mechanical diesels - don't rely so much on electrics, so as long as they can breathe air - and exhaust emissions then they are happy.  If however they breathe in any water then the chances are you will do alot of serious engine damage - valves, rods etc...  They won't restart necessarily and you could be facing a big bill.

Electronic diesels (TD5 etc.) may also be affected by water in the electronics.

There are merits in either approach.  My road car which I use to set up off road events is a diesel and the racer is a V8.  I don't take either through really deep water if I can help it as it also can have detrimental effect on all sorts of other parts.

[beast5680]

the silicon rubber boots are sold by tufftoys in melton mowbray they are a good thing and a bad thing in my opinion, yes they kep water out but they also keep condensation in which can give you the same problem.
some people like them some hate them i think its a matter of choice.
as has been said it depends on how deep you want to go

[Wolfie]

There's some useful information here on how to prepare the distributor for getting wet. A good set of HT leads helps - tightly fitting standard leads are fine - a friend's RR runs happily with the plugs under water.

At the moment on the racer I'm just using copious amounts of chain wax and a deflector plate, but will be doing the dizzy breather mod sometime.

The military kit looks nice, but isn't cheap.

Regards

Wolfie