I was driving in a torrential downpour for about 30 min and once I got off the highway, my car jerked violently and seemed to slip out of gear when in 1st or 2nd. This continued when starting the car after the rain stopped, but went away on my 30 min drive back. What exactly happened here? Do I need to start worrying about replacing the clutch? I have an aftermarket RJM clutch pedal installed - not sure if that matters. I drove in heavy rain maybe a few weeks ago for maybe 15-20 min and never had this issue.

Or could this be wheel hop? I replaced all the diff bushings with Whitelines and the jerkiness still persisted for a bit while in gear.

 

Its difficult to tell what you are trying to explain. I'm not sure what you mean by slipping out of gear since it's a manual transmission. Maybe if you have cold air intake the water went in there and was causing the car to jerk? The aftermarket pedal should not have any thing to do with the rain

 

Sorry. Once I got into gear from 1st or 2nd, the car would drop rpms, stop accelerating, and I'd feel a forceful jerk/shake. It would soon get back to normal for a couple seconds then the same thing would happen again. Once I got into 3rd+, it would stop happening. For the CAI, I have the splash shield installed. Doesn't cover everything perfectly, but at least 80% of the filters. I'm not sure what's a telltale sign of water getting in your intake. I went for another drive later and there was no problem, so it's really strange.

 

If RPM's are dropping its not the clutch slipping. If clutch was slipping RPM's would go up. It sounds like the water caused your issue. I had a CAI on my Stealth back in the day. I ditched it after I sucked water into the intake and stalled the car in the middle of the road. I didn't even drive through standing water, it was just a heavy rain. When I pulled the intake I dumped a cup of water out of my MAS. After it dried out I was able to move again.

 

Damn that sucks. I probably would've stalled if I didn't have the splash shield since I was on the highway. Hopefully there's not much damage since the car seems normal now. It doesn't rain for long periods too often in Houston, but when it's heavy it's really heavy so if it happens again, I'll probably have to ditch them. Thanks for responding.

 

Maybe one day after some rain and a drive you could take the intake off somewhere in the engine bay. If there’s moisture on it, then bingo.

Also I’ve heard of people spraying small amounts of water into an engine at high revs to clear some carbon out, but can’t say if that works or not.