Wow, how much water got on your filter? We get some heavy rain here in S. Jersey but not that often. But i worry about any water getting on the filter. Well isn't the fenderwell covered at the bottom?
Thanks for your reply.

 

My fenderwell is open at the bottom. This was a pretty big/long (lol) puddle from an abnormally heavy rain the night before. It was a good 40-50 feet long and it was splashing water about 3 feet high.. I assume it was splashing the other direction also (toward the filter) right onto the filter which caused it to suck up a bunch of water. Car instantly died.

Now a little more detailed info.. I have drove this car like this for over 3 years now and never sucked up water because im very aware of the filter location and very cautious.. Im still not going to move the filter either because im confident I wont ever suck up water. My wife had taken that car to work that day. She was almost all the way thru the 40ish foot long puddle when she thought she could speed up.... She pressed the the pedal down and all that water splashing the filter got sucked right into the engine.

If youre very cautious you should be fine. Just know theres always a chance however.

If it would help you, I can get some pictures of exactly where mine is situated later.

 

It is mostly covered assuming all the plastics are in place and in good shape. You wont hydro lock your engine just driving in the rain.

However, it's not sealed, so if you start hitting puddles, it will get wet from splashing. Theres also nothing to keep the water out if you start driving through relatively deep standing water as the openings are big enough for it to rapidly fill.

If you live in an area that gets a lot of rain and you dont want to have to worry about it, I'd just suggest a closed CAI box in the engine bay that draws its air from behind the headlight. Thatll give you the higher flow benefit of the larger piping / filter, but with water resistance similar to stock.

 

Thanks guys for your help. I like the JMB intake since it has a block off plate and a PCM tray. They charge a little over $200 which isn't cheap
but it looks like a high quality setup.

 

I see. ZZP has their own CAI it looks like it's pretty good as well.

 

If you could find a 4 inch version of Cai intake bypass this then it isn't an issue. Or reduce pipe size to 3 inch.


Ran one years ago on a Saturn sl2. Did its not in Arizona and later in middle Georgia.

 

I've always wondered with those- how do they ensure its 100% sealed under normal operating conditions? If the valving opens at all, its going to be sucking hot engine bay air that defeats the purpose of a FWI.

Also worthwhile noting that they had a recall on them years ago because some were coming apart and getting ingested / jammed in the TB.

IMO if you're in an area that gets enough rain to actually worry about it, just do a proper insulated CAI box and be done with it. The IATs between a good CAI and FWI is negligible, and then you dont have to get so paranoid every time it rains.

 

It only opens when rest of pipe goes full vacuum then it is hot engine air. I only had mine open once, forgot how 1 street closed in heavy rain.

havent felt the need on this fwi as the filter is higher off ground than in that car plus fact I have yet to strip excess weight.

 

How good does the ZZP CAI work? Does it keep water out and does it allow cool are air in?

 

I understand the concept with how they work, I'm just curious if anyone had done IAT testing to see if there are any driving conditions that they leak under. Not that its catastrophic if they do leak, just hurts the whole purpose of running a FWI.

May be a bit of ignorance on my part too, I dont have a good feel for the difference in in-HG between WOT at high rpm and the amount of vacuum needed to suck water. Maybe those two values are further apart than I think.

Also curious how you knew yours opened once - is it a distinct audible difference when it opens?

Never seen one in person, but the pictures on their website look GTG to me. It's more open to the fender than stock, but given the height of the filter, it doesnt seem to have any appreciably higher risk than stock of hydro locking the engine.

It does look like it would do a pretty good job of keeping the hot engine air out, certainly much better than the K&N boxes do. The places its pulling air from are as cool as you could hope for.