Water in my wells!!

Hey guys,

It's been a while! Been running into a recurring problem though and wanted to see if anyone here has any ideas.

I'm currently living abroad, but the Supra is still here in the UK (had it for 14 years now!) and spends most of it's time parked up under a heavy-duty weatherproof cover, with the battery removed. I usually come home 3-4 times a year to take it for a spin and blow the cobwebs off, and she mostly runs like a dream!

However, if the cover is off for any period of time (1-2 weeks +), then it seems an almost certainty that water will get into the engine, and down inside the spark plug wells. This will cause the car to run on 5-cylinders, sometimes less. I've started putting an old towel over the engine when I'm not here, but the car still gets moved around occasionally, and that's when the water gets in.

Usually, I take the coil packs off, blast the water out with the compressor, clean up the plugs, and everything works. But quite a few times it seems that one or more of the plugs has died and I need to replace them. I've been through about 3 full sets of plugs now, none of which has seen more than 500 miles I reckon!

Are there any other solutions out there that might work in my situation? Is there any way to prevent the water getting in there. Maybe I need some spark plugs that are a bit more resistant to rare-use - currently using some NGK Iridium plugs I believe! Last dyno-run I did, the car was a shade under 520bhp, so I think the plugs need to handle that! The bonnet does have vents in it (AB Flug), which is where I guess the water is getting in.

Attached a pic of today's cleanup operation if there's anything worth looking at in there which might help

Any help or ideas would be great!

Cheers, James

Abflug from looking at the pics has a long opening left to right only?

Anything directly below this (or attached to the bonnet) that channels the water off the front or sides of the engine will do.

Depends how permanent you want it, if you want to just be able to move the car around the drive with it in place or actually drive it normally with it in place?

Thanks Scooter,

Yeah ... AB Flug has horizontal intakes, but it has a couple of them + one intake for the the air filter. I've attached a better pic of mine that shows it.

I think if I was going to fit some sort of channel to deal with the water, then it would be something permanent (looking forward to my eventual return to England), as opposed to a temporary solution.

But .... the plugs that are affected the worst are 1 & 2 (or whichever the ones closest to the firewall are), which aren't actually under any of the bonnet intakes. If it was just water entering via those, it should be the plugs closest to the front of the car that are affected I would have thought.

I'll see if I can figure out some kind of water-channeling system though, as I can't imagine the bonnet vents help with the water intake either way!

Cheers!

It'll be the central one giving the issues, but it is a bit odd that it's the rear couple of wells. Is the car slightly nose up when parked? And the water is somehow running down the seams of the top cover and dripping down the back?

If you are leaving the car exposed for long periods of time, can't you just put a sheet of plastic over the engine bay under the bonnet? I normally do this with any vented bonnets I deal with. Does a good enough job keeping water out until needing to work on them.