Trimmed Fenders - Intake Air Filter Protection?

To start I have trimmed fenders to accommodate 35's that I did over the summer, now that winter is here an we have rain/snow storms regularly I am starting to get more concerned about water getting into my intake. I make shifted my stock fender liners to somewhat work but it's still concerning. Of course with trimmed fenders you lose the fender liner that protects water/debris from entering the side orifice on the inner fender for the intake.

I've seen a few post here about some folks going about with routing their intake tubes into the cowl but I think a simple CAI setup and blocking off the intake orifice seemed like a cleaner setup. I came across a response in a post here (#15) from @90yota who used a K&N CAI an blocked off the fender intake hole with some plexiglass? and drilled some small holes in it for some airflow, which I thought was a pretty good idea and I want to do something similar.

I have preference to use a dry filter over an oiled one an came across a few options including the K&N Blackhawk Dryflow CAI and the Injen PF CAI an I wanted to get some thoughts and/or feedback on them. There is a little bit of info here on the K&N Blackhawk, some good some bad, but I couldn't find anything on the Injen PF. Anyone have experience with Injen or anything good or even bad to say about them?

I also noticed the K&N has a filter that has a 6" inside flange diameter vs the Injen has a 3.5" so seems a little bit more restrictive but still seems on par with the factory intake tubing size. Injen also offers hydroshield covers for their filters which is nice but I'm sure I could find one for the K&N as well.

Also I am not looking for any gains here for HP, TQ or MPG's. Merely just looking for a clean solution for the intake due to my trimmed fenders. I would prefer to keep utilizing the stock intake but it has obvious draw backs with trimmed fenders and I'm not a huge fan on the cowl mod intakes but maybe that is a better option than the CAI's?

Added a couple pictures of both setups from their websites and also a pic of how I make shifted the factory fender liners to work somewhat an they do help but this is not a good long term solution.

Thanks!

 

Some home made inner fenders. Took a little ingenuity but wasn't hard. Sorry fkr my insta screen shots. Only place i had the pics saved.

 

Multiple paragraphs. You must be super worried which I would be too. I’ve seen a Taco with 35s with an aftermarket inner fender that covers that area. You may want to look for that.

 

Nice that looks good, what material did you use if you don't mind? Looks like you also put silicone around the edges of the fender side to create a seal?

A little worrisome but looks like the post above yours did just that.

 

It's a sheet of plastic used in bathroom walls. 4x8 sheet from home depot. Then some automotive seam sealer to seal it all up.

 

Sweet deal thanks, will look into that. Honestly looks factory to me and get to keep the stock intake so I'll probably do something along this route instead.

 

https://geartechcustoms.com/shop/ols/products/toyota-tacoma-fend-x-wheel-liners

 

My plexiglass started to get brittle and crack after a while so I would recommend just doing metal. It was cool that it was see-through but honestly not worth it breaking all the time

 

the "CAI" is more of a hot air intake than the stock system/cowl mod and road spray/mud is going to make the airbox dirty but not be enough water to be dangerous for ingestion. Any water that is high enough up to be an ingestion hazard will be even more so with the "CAI" designs shown in your pics.

 

Nice I came across those after looking into aftermarket fender liners now, solid product but its looks like they're all sold out at the moment but they definitely look easy to work with.

I couldn't see the plexiglass holding up long term, metal plate would for sure be better.

I hear ya an not saying they actually bring in more cool air that's just what they're referred to as. I'm just looking for protection from the road spray and mud while driving on roads and trails, I don't do deep water crossing.

 

With a stock air intake you can use a filter wrap type material like used on K&N and other filters to keep water and debris out of the filter.

Here is a sheet for use in the stock air-box;

$18 Outerwears OuterwearsPre Filter Sheet, 12x12 in, Cut-To-Fit, Polyester, Black, Each

https://www.amazon.com/Outerwears-W...=1640376064&sprefix=b00230cryw+,aps,93&sr=8-1

 

This looks interesting. Could this go over the intake hole inside the fender? Or do you mean use it in the stock air box

 

Is the material you used similar to Bituthene? Is it more of a flexible sheet or is it hard plastic that you cut and screwed in? Thank you.

 

Thin and flexible

 

Hey I just stumbled across this post and wanted to see how the material has held up? Also, is the material you used similar to this?

$32 24"x48"x 1/8" ABS Plastic Sheet Textured Front Smooth Back Vacuum Forming THERMOFORMING

https://www.amazon.com/Plastic-Text...t=&hvlocphy=9031087&hvtargid=pla-569852428479

 

For some reason, operator error I assume, the clips I purchased to reattach my plastic fender does not seem to seem to go flush. This was not a part of the process I would have issues with. Can someone verify that these are the correct ones for me?

 

Mine came with the black washers like in the photo above. I had to remove them for it to snap in.

 

Geartech Customs Fend-X liners. Good quality. Fits perfectly. Still testing them out in the backcountry but so far so good.

 

I got mine figured out— I had blue clips in two orange clip spots