I've been considering putting a Ram Air CAI on my ES but I'm really worried about sucking in water. Anyone have any experience with this?

I'm currently running with the stock intake from air box back, the "air scoop" in front of that was missing from the car when I bought it. I'm pretty sure while this is sort of a short air, it's worse than stock since I'm not getting any cold air, just air from the compartment directly above the tranny and it's all kinds of screwed up airflow through that box.

I'm considering doing a custom Ramair that gets direct air from here:



There's room to move things around so I can get it direct after I remove the "grills" in the way or put on a new bumper with a similar intake area. I figured I'd put a custom mesh type grill to catch anything bigger than a pea at least, but am really worried about what happens when it rains and I have air directly in from there. I know people are doing the mod to the grill area with the stock parts the make it "ram air" from the grill without water problems, but that set up has a lot of 90° bends and other ugly air flow to catch the water. Mine would be 3 less than 45° bends directly into the intake, through the filter and MAF of course.

I don't want to be screwing around with my intake when it rains, this is my daily driver to work and invariable if it's going to rain, it does when I'm going to work. No time to be screwing with the car, and I wear button up's and slacks to work that I'd prefer not to grease up on the way in.

Any other suggestions on decent air intake? Is there really much difference in what I'm getting out of the engine now, and what I'd get with my set up, or a standard CAI?

 

is the car getting you less MPG because of the air scoop, because mine is missing that part too, and is getting me like 20MPG.