Last night I decided to get off my lazy duff and go out to my car with the idea in mind of adjusting the right headlight. It wouldn't adjust and upon further inspection the gears weren't meshing together. On the passenger side of the car the air intake plastic tube is right there making it hard to see.
I won't go into the whole headlight deal...that's a NEW beef I now have with CarMax (to add to a couple others).
The reason I'm posting is this. Once I had the plastic inlet tube off I was curious as to what it sounded like without it. Since I have a 99 AEB I just fiddled with the throttle cable and I was right...the intake made more noise and the engine sounded a little throatier.
I figured hell, why not go for a short drive and see how this affects performance. It seemed to have slightly better throttle response and the car sounded better. However, this was late at night so the air was for the most part cool (65 deg F or so). I decided to leave the plastic tube off the car during the day today to see how the heat would affect the car's performance. This afternoon it was around 80 deg F here in Ft.Wayne.
For some reason the heat didn't seem to affect performance at all, in fact it again seemed to have better throttle response overall. I could hear the engine more, including the turbo spooling, and the throatier sound was of course still there.
Maybe someone else can shed some light on this. My reasoning for it is this. Since the air inlet is still in place cool outside air is still being directed into the engine bay there is just no restrictive tube to direct it straight into the intake. Now since the shape of the air inlet directs air towards the air box the intake is still getting fresh, cool outside air. There is just nothing to restrict the intake now.
I drove rather spiritedly around and then opened the up the hood. There was a lot of heat on the engine bay side but not so much around the intake. Of course a better heatshield could be fabricated to further shield the intake from heat but it's pretty decent as it is.
Am I just crazy or have I stumbled upon something interesting? :crazy:
I won't go into the whole headlight deal...that's a NEW beef I now have with CarMax (to add to a couple others).
The reason I'm posting is this. Once I had the plastic inlet tube off I was curious as to what it sounded like without it. Since I have a 99 AEB I just fiddled with the throttle cable and I was right...the intake made more noise and the engine sounded a little throatier.
I figured hell, why not go for a short drive and see how this affects performance. It seemed to have slightly better throttle response and the car sounded better. However, this was late at night so the air was for the most part cool (65 deg F or so). I decided to leave the plastic tube off the car during the day today to see how the heat would affect the car's performance. This afternoon it was around 80 deg F here in Ft.Wayne.
For some reason the heat didn't seem to affect performance at all, in fact it again seemed to have better throttle response overall. I could hear the engine more, including the turbo spooling, and the throatier sound was of course still there.
Maybe someone else can shed some light on this. My reasoning for it is this. Since the air inlet is still in place cool outside air is still being directed into the engine bay there is just no restrictive tube to direct it straight into the intake. Now since the shape of the air inlet directs air towards the air box the intake is still getting fresh, cool outside air. There is just nothing to restrict the intake now.
I drove rather spiritedly around and then opened the up the hood. There was a lot of heat on the engine bay side but not so much around the intake. Of course a better heatshield could be fabricated to further shield the intake from heat but it's pretty decent as it is.
Am I just crazy or have I stumbled upon something interesting? :crazy: