While inspecting my airbox after removing the resonator cover, I found out that the fresh air intake runs right under the resonation chamber. Comparatively, the intake tract ends up bottle necking in an opening a little smaller than 2" square.

Seeing this I decided that my next attempt at working on the airbox would be to open up the intake tract without making the job look hacked and it would be purely functional. And better yet - would cost zero dollars.

Removed the airbox and found that the area right after a divider would be perfect to open up to allow more airflow to the primary filter box.



I opened up the area with a hole saw attachment on a drill. I cleaned the opening up with a fine saw blade and xacto knives to smooth the edges. I followed up with sandpaper. The only feature I wasn't able to successfully smooth down was the leading edge of the divider inside the tube. Cleaned it the best I could and let it stay as is. The the divider had to be cut in order to allow the best intake path to the new opening.



Cleaned the who assembly up, then covered in interior of the box with Krylon Fusion black paint to cover up the sand marks and cuts. Came out pretty good. I'll be covering this partially up with a soon-to-be-made scoop (more on this later).



Lastly, before fitting it back into the car, I decided to cover the underside of the box with two layers of heat reflecting aviation grade aluminum tape. Got this stuff from a friend and it is very expensive, but reflects lots of heat and weights nothing. This is not aluminum foil from a roll. I wanted Mylar foil, but thats $$$$$$.



Installed it into the car, and there is certainly more induction noise. A tad more power is noticeable in the midrange and in throttle tip in at like 3-4k. Butt dyno is saying about a 1.5hp increase.

Another added plus is that the underhood OE scoop now ducts air from inside the front bumper directly down into the new intake opening, rather into the general area of the airbox. I'm gonna improve on this later by bonding the scoop to the hood more securely and turning the resonation chamber lid into a positive mating area for the scoop and the airbox.

I know its not an earth-shattering mod, and lots of people will probably laugh at it, but its free and still maintains a good deal of lower end power that SRI's give up. Whats better, put the resonation chamber lid back on and no one (dealer) will ever have any idea whats going on.

 

i did the same thing too

i also used a 2.5" coupler and mounted the stock map intake pipe directly to the throttle body, with the stock intake filter still...sounds like a g35 at 4krpm

 

can u pls give pics of ur work? thx

 

its basically the MAP lid mounted upside down, connected directly to the throttle body

 

I had the exact same idea 3 years ago, just never wanted to hack up my new car..... how much of a PITA was it to take the box out?

 

thanks to this post, i try it & loving it a bit.

3.5k rpm onwards, it gets louder till about 5k rpm, the noise gets lesser all the way till 6k +

its a fun mod guys.

 

I hope I can find an OEM box for cheap so I can start carving it up. I've got access to a dyno and would like to try out my own "intake power shoot-out." If I ever get around to it I'll be sure to post up all the results for everyone.

 

Would this work the same on the GD3 or is the GE airbox totally different?

 

By the looks of it the ge might be slightly different than the gd3. What is that stupid,looks like a mini paintball viewloader, I tried pulling it off and noticed it had a rivet holding it down. Also if you notice the gd3 has a scoop down by the drivers side bumper to the left of the foglight. I wonder if anybody has tried putting that to use, maybe using it to funnel cold air to the intake

 

Any update on this?

 

Still rocking the same setup for the most part. No issues so far with over 15k miles on the box.

 

Thanks for this! I love mods like this haha cheap and fun

 

What i did was take out the whole 90 degree that is built into the stock.airbox replaced it with a 90 pipe and 2 couplers then hacked off the whole back of the bottom of the stock airbox

 

Any pics of that?

 

I will take some tomorrow when its not dark.out looks oem has a nice sound to it thinking about nodding the box more tomorrow at work

 

http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/3818/imag0066wo.jpg

 

 

 

^ that's what i did too...

 

I.also just pulled.it.out again modded lower half more.