just a note , i took my h3 into 2 and one half foot of street water up here in rhode island saturday,drove almost 250 yards before out of it,,,,not even a sputter

 

my concern for that would be what did you get water into? the factory says 24 inces because that is either the height of the computer, or of a gear box vent. since you didn't have any engine problems, you either got lucky, or the computer is higher; which leave the gearbox vents. it might be wise to check all of your fluids to ensure none of them are water contaminated. that can get expensive in a hurry if left without checking.

 

I didn't get a chance to look yet but does H3 have a high mounted breather box for the transmission? Also, are the hood-mounted air intakes functional or just for looks?

 

My dealer told me the passanger one is but other people say they are fake but if you look at your airfilter box it goes inside the fender and it look like it go to the vent.

 

I checked my truck after my post. On the passenger side I noticed a bunch of maple seeds sucked into the grill holes on the bottom of the passenger side air intake. Seems that it is pulling in air (and maple seeds). On the driver's side, nothing. This evidence confirms what your dealers said.

With such a high mounted air intake it's no wonder that the fording depth is 24"!

 

Brake coolers (or so I was told)...

 

The intake for the airbox is behind the front passenger wheel well.

As for going through more than 24" of water, as long as you get a good bow wake going you should be fine. Just don't stop in the middle. The worry about going through water isn't necessarily the computer, but getting water in the intake and hydrolocking. Then you're really screwed.

 

There must be an opening in the wheel well through the fender to the passenger side air intake. I cleaned out the maple seeds and tonight there were a bunch sucked into to grill again.

 

The fenders are open to the right and left side snorkels..they are not really functional as you would think like the H2..but they do in fact ventilate the fender cavities, if you want to call it that...the engine Air intake tube just so happens to go into the right fender cavity..The wheelwell liner is all that seperates it from the great outdoors after that..the snorkels are more or less just for cosmetics..it wouldn't matter if they were open or not, as plenty of air gets into the fender cavity anyway.

 

Dennis is correct. A while back the factory gave me a courtesy call to see how I like the vehicle and while I had them on the phone I asked them about the intake and they said it just goes into the fender and the boxes are cosmetic. IMO I think it would be cool if someone designed a tube to hook up to the filter box and route back inside the fender to the passenger box and up the windshield frame similar to the deep water fording kit on the military HMMWV's.