Nissan frontier gets rainwater in the air filter

[zusu]

I have a 2004 Nissan frontier and when I am driving on the highway during periods of heavy rain rainwater is somehow getting up into my air filter. The first symptoms are chugging and missing and finally the truck dies and will not re start. The first time this happened i had it towed to a garage and it showed up on the machine as water in the fuel. When they removed the air filter cover and looked inside we were all shocked. There was so much water it had saturated the air filter and there was about a quart of water in the cover. They replaced the air filter and dried out the compartment and it ran fine again. Well...the same thing just happened to me again. I bought two new air filters at Kragen and a bag of rags to get me home. Any suggestions or experience with this?

Thanks

[RT22]

where is the inlet for air filter located? Water can only get in through an opening, track it and find out where it is getting in, if the inlet is in the grill area maybe you need to go to a K&N style cold filter charger and get the air inlet back under the hood so water in the rain can not get in.

[RT22]

Or build a splash guard so water cannot get into the intake of the air tube. I know guys with the 1990-1996 300zx had this issue as the inlet for air filters were in the center front panel between headlights and was right behind grill area and if you hit a puddle it could spray water into the intake opening.

[Rev_D21]

2 or 4wd? Is there any kind of damage to the plastic intake tube? Are you running some kind of cold air intake?