Going back to Santa'sBoostinSleigh & Rick's entries (though the carbon fibre aspect sounds kinda cool), that's pretty much what I was thinking about the water aspect and the extra piping involved.
Having said that, I was just thinking of putting a bloody great dividing wall between the filter and the engine, running from the firewall to battery/ fusebox, like bad20v's photo (only I have a bit more room!

). What I was puzzling over was whether I should put some ducting in to get more cool air into the bay without cutting holes in the bonnet, as the layout is fairly tight. Getting round the radiator appears to be the main problem, which Ricks solution appears to answer. I hadn't thought that far outside the square, but as a compromise over the water/ piping drawback, what about leaving the filter roughly where it is, and running ducting into the box?
Darn it, I've just read this and makes little sense even to me, and I wrote it- I so need a camera to show this better...
Oh man, and I've just remembered something! there's this Trueno running around Napier with a similar design to Ricks, only the filter is literally sticking out of the fender, for all to see... figured he hadn't thought of the water etc.
Just as an aside, has anybody examined their intake system to find where the most restriction is, like with a manometer?