Guys, we just messed up big time. 😔
We took the cowl off our Fit to paint it, cause it was super faded. We haven't had the chance to go get it and put it back on. We didn't check the weather before my boyfriend went to work...in the Fit. Well now it's raining really hard and it's going to be raining for the next couple of hours. My boyfriend says this is going to rust the engine bay. Does anyone have any advice, or know of anything we can do to help save our engine bay?

 

The engine bay will not rust however the water may enter the throttle body connector ..

 

There is nothing going to rust that wouldn't rust otherwise. On a wet road, water enters the engine compartment from underneath and in front so nothing to worry about whether the cowl is there or not. It's decoration more than anything else.

 

If you're truly worried about water in the electrical connecters you can buy some spray to clean/remove water. Just hand dry the water at first and see if there was any puddling in important areas like the coil packs, etc. Then make that discussion spray out the connecters.

 

It's fine. Nothing in the engine compartment will be harmed by rain, as long as you only removed the hood and didn't open up anything like electrical connectors, fuse box covers, air breather, etc.
All of the important electrical connectors are weather sealed.

 

I will object this.
My recent junk yard find had water in connector C-103 and inside of the throttle body connector (water leaked from inside of the rubber boot. On my car the rubber boot is distorted around connector C-103

 

That looks like a simple rubber cover, not a weather tight connector.

There should be a rubber gasket that seals between the two halves of the connector shells, protecting the wire terminals inside.

 

Under this cover you can see exposed terminals (back side of the terminals). When salty water collects on them it may cause terminal failure (corrosion).

 

Sorry, I had tried to edit my above post from my phone and it would not let me do that for some reason.

I don't have an identical car to look at (GF has the Fit) to view that particular connector (looks like it would be a splice pack?), but I do expect all connectors in the engine compartment to be water resistant because they are all exposed to water at various times while driving.

That made me think of another post I read a while back:https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/3rd-...ml#post1341838

Even with the rubber covering on yours being distorted, I'd hope each individual wire has a seal where it enters the shell of the connector, much like the round gaskets shown with this connector set:

 

Cover it with a tarp?