I just installed a Donaldson Blackwing. Has anybody had any trouble with water ingestion with this filter.

 

I drive mine every day. I have been through some pretty heavy rain. I also don't have the hood seal. Whenever I get home from driving in the
rain, I dry off the hood so that it doesn't pour water onto the filter when I open the hood. Then I open the hood to check for water on the
filter. I have never seen any water on or near the filter and it is always dry to the touch. There will sometimes be water on the little lip where
people install the hood seal, but it is very minimal and I would be willing to bet that it would not hurt anything if it did get on to the filter.
Again this is a very minimal amount of water and only occurs during extended driving in hard rain. I also have the self drilled cold air
screens. They let a little water into the engine compartment as evidenced by the small waterspots I find while inspecting under the hood
after driving through rain. However, the waterspots are no where near the filter area. They are located directly rearward from the screens, at
the front of the wheel well (go figure, the water dropletts travel in a straignt line rather than making a 90 dregee turn and heading directly for
the filter ). IMO, the hood seal is not necessary (but doesn't hurt and is relatively inexpensive) and the cold air screens (self drilled, Z06
screens, or any other type) will not allow water to get to your filter. Bottom line, I like the Donaldson and the drilled cold air screens, and
don't see a need to get the hood seal.

 

I'm not sure how similar the Donaldson is to Vortex... but I recently installed a Vortex, & after my first 1/2 hour drive in the rain, the whole inside of the (clear) box was covered/soaked with water... It didn't appear to actually enter the air filter itsself, but I was concerned that it could with so much water in the box after only a short drive in the rain.

Here's my post about it..... http://forums.corvetteforum.com/zerothread?id=140680

 

With air constantly moving through these things, I would think that unless you poured huge amount of water in there, it would probably dry out pretty fast... probably as fast as the water could drip on it. It might raise the humidity of the air entering the car a bit, but you're driving in the rain anyway.

It's a good question though. I just rinsed mine to get the dust off it at the car wash and never thought about that as I sprayed the front bumper and bottom of the hood. I'm sure water had to get in there but it didn't seem to cause any trouble. Washing the car or sitting in the rain may actually be worse than driving in the rain. When you are sitting, water would just roll down the hood. While driving, water might tend to just blow over/back without even going through that small crack between the bumper/hood. Plus, if the water is going from front to back, the front bumper has a lot less suface area than the hood which can collect a LOT of water if you are sitting in a hard rain.

Makes me think though. Maybe I'll just put a small piece of aluminum flashing under there where the bumper attaches to divert water off to the sides of the filter. That way it won't really look any different from the outside.

Mike