its silly to worry about the little cross piece when worrying about air flow to the IC…when you’re leaving a huge rectangle right in it’s way…no mesh, no cross piece, no plate…front plates are for dweebs. you drive a Z not a civic with a fart can…you’re aren’t going to get pulled over for a plate…and like mike said…when u get pulled over for something else, its a great backup plan to get a ticket for that instead.
plate and exhaust has saved me a few times from costly speeding tickets…but never pulled over primarily because of plate