Wet FWI!!
 

I live in philadelphia and we had some heavy rain this morning. I drove about 10 miles to work and I just felt I should check my fwi. sure enough the entire area around the filter was wet including the filter itself. It wasnt soaked but its hard to tell since the filter has the thin wire cage around it. I have only had this intake about 2 weeks and this isnt the first rain since I have installed it. I did not notice a change in performance or acceleration but it was raining so I did not push it anyway.
Question is, what problem do I have on my hands. I only see a few places that I could seal up but honestly I do not see how I could stop the water from getting in entirely. Could I have already damaged something in the engine? Is a little moisture even ok? I really just want to kno what im dealing with before I decide to take it out.
thanks.

What do you have?

I have an Intense FWI and in the 97 that I drive there is no protection. It sits right in front of the tire. I've driven through everything and never once had an issue. Lightly oiled K&N should keep all the yuck out.

A small amount of moisture entering your car's intake system will not damage anything. The risk is if enough water enters and creates a situation called hydra lock. This happens when enough water is sitting in the combustion chamber (in the cylinder, above the piston) that it actually stops the piston ... dead in its tracks. All sorts of damage can result from this. By the fact your engine is still running, you do not have hydra lock.

I extremely doubt you have damaged anything, but the potential of sucking a large amount of water in and hydra locking your engine is there. Could you post pictures of your set up? Is this a home made system, or did you purchase it? If you bought it, where from?

Its actually an intense fwi. I will try to get pictures up as soon as I go home. Thanks for the info about hydra lock. Its hard to tell how wet the actual filter is but there is significant moisture in the area.

Unless you drive threw standing water you should be fine. Just keep it cleaned, and not over oiled.

ya you have nothing to be worried about, If you totally seal the area up, how will it get any Air???

i have the same car as you, same Intake as you, had my FWI for 2 years and driven 8-9 hrs in the pouring rain with no problems

If you drive in rain its no problem, but if you go in a puddle beware. I went through a puddle, a very deep one at the bone yard mall here in miami its like a city of junkyards, and there are huge holes there. Well theres a long stretch of road that when it rains it gets flooded... i went threw it pretty well i was being careful though and then right at the end i felt the car dip i accelerated to try and get out fast but all i did was feel the car turn off.... My FWI acted like a straw and sucked water in my engine it was dead... so we got out of the car and took the plugs out then i turned the ignition and it threw water out of the sparkplug holes .... we put the plugs and wires back and the car felt horrible... my friend matt from orlanda came in his 12 second cobalt SS and while he was down here for a cruise told me it was driving crappy cause of the plugs he said it was misfire but the OBD read "random misfire" so we didnt know which ones. We just took em all out and noticed some plugs were dirty we changed em and viola! the car ran as good as new ^.^ The good thing is after this my car never turned off randomly like it used to which leads me to believe this lil experience cleaned my MAF?! xD lol

Well I will probably just leave it on. I was just concerned. I'm going to keep the filter oiled too, for safe measure.

Just make sure you don't over oil it. The MAF wire will get coated with the oil and you will get a MAF code

Your other option is to switch to a CAI system with a cold air box, that way its a little higher off the ground and its enclosed.