Earth Siege

The second puc i was also adding the ipf headlights and was comparing the diff

RLT

Yeah mine came with the mopar hood lock, but I think they're easily by passed, as the dealers has fitted two new ones since new, getting passed seized locks.
The hood is alarmed and goes off if its lifted though.

RLT

08Rubicon

While it does seem improbable for a bag to be sucked all the way up there, nothing is impossible. I would think that if someone had stuffed a bag into the air box then it would have been sucked up to the filter and would have caused some serious performance degradation instantaneously since they would have most likely just thrown it in there spread out. The bag would have spread out against the entire filter as opposed to just one small area and would not have had significant enough force in one area to push past the filter. What makes me think that it happened while driving is that for the filter to crumple up, the bag would have to have been tightly packed like it would have been after it was sucked through the intake then forced against one side of the filter where there would have been an increase in pressure in one area. With this increase in pressure there could have been enough pressure to crumple up and bypass a stock filter. It is still possible that someone tightly packed the bag prior to putting it in the air box but I would think that it would have had to been placed in there right before the engine started or it would have begun to spread out in the box.

How long had you been driving when this happened? Did you notice any performance degradation upon ignition?

There could be multiple issues after an incident like this. I would take apart the top end to the valves and check for any evidence of damage or foreign objects and if all looks good then you should be good to go. Personally I wouldn’t start it just in case pieces had gone all the way to the cylinder; I would hate to scar the cylinder walls just because I was too lazy to look first.

vandegrift

I gotta say, that sucks someone doesn't like you enough that they would screw with you rig.
I don't think anything is going to be wrong with the engine, if it isn't making any noises yet...

gijeep

who cares how it affects the converter... they have to be warranteed for quite a while... i think like 90k or 5 years or something like that i forget.


It is likely that at a high speed that it was sucked in then the suction bent your air filter (especially if it was a crappy stock one) trying to get air into the engine.

take the box off and undo the hose going to the throttle body (this is VERY easy to do) after that it takes some experience if you want to take off the throttle body and then inspect the intake plenum... id at least take the intake off and look around before I called it good.

el mono

Should human malfeasance be the culprit, I second the hood lock suggestion. I rate that addition up there with the fire extinguisher and tranny cooler.
Sidebar/hijack - As for the seizing lock, silicone spray keeps mine safe and I ensure the rubber seal is fully seated.

JKlad

I had something similar happen on a motor & suffered a burnt valve as a result. It was one of those old-school carburetted I6s with the donut-shaped air filter sitting on top of the carby in a circular filter housing. When I replaced the filter a piece of the cellophane wrapping it came packed in tore off & remained stuck on the top of the plastic frame that holds the filter medium, eventually dislodging itself & getting sucked down through the carby, past an inlet valve & into the cylinder head itself, melting and coating the valve & combustion chamber in the process. Had to get the head re-done.

largo

So sorry to hear this. The world is hard enought to get through without someone screwing around with you. I hope you get this resolved without a lot of money being expended. Let us know what you find out.

MFX

Kinda similar story here

My dad has a Ram 3500 and for almost a year the truck would shake and almost die when idling. He barely ever uses the truck and the few times he had it looked at, the mechanics claimed it was problems with the transmission. This past fall, I took apart the intake and throttle body to give everything a good cleaning and re-oil his K&N filter. When I took off the intake pipe down near the fender I found a black plastic cap off of some spray can which was restricting the airflow. The last place to service the engine was the Dodge dealer
Needless to say, the transmission is fine and the truck works great now.

MagnumD69

Years ago, I was changing the air filter on my 96 Probe GT and noticed there was a plastic soda bottle cap in the airbox (stopped by the filter). Some dealer tech probably wondered where it went, scratched his crotch and went about his day.