Further Lower Under Hood Temps / BAT's
 

Ok, so not sure why I hadn't done this sooner and have not seen where it has been pointed out in any other thread. So chime in if you think this is a good idea or if you have already done it to your Gen2.

You will need the necessary tools to remove your intake:
These will vary depending on your set up.
The only other things needed:
10mm ratcheting wrench or socket
2 zip ties

Since running a cold air box with my CS SRI this piece has became even more useless then it was when running just the CS SRI. Those of us who have a TMIC need all the airflow we can get under the hood to keep things cool. This should help even more so.

Above the Radiator there is additional piping that runs along the top of the radiator to direct airflow to the OEM airbox, but it seems to limit the total amount of air coming in. Took around 10 minutes to remove this piece.

1.Undo two 10mm bolts / screws from center area under the hood above radiator. Remove hoses from the holders. Move the air duct up and down to loosen from where it connects to the car and slide it and shift it to the driver's side of the car. Removing the dip stick allowed more clearance along with making sure the piece did not get hung up on any wires and hoses.

From the larger opening of the smiley I could see light coming in and I could put my hand in there and feel the openings where the air can now come in where it was previously blocked and leading it to the front of the intake manifold and under the tmic area. Should make a good bit of difference in under hood temps and hopefully BAT's.

On to the pics so you have a better idea of what I'm talking about.

in before brownie does this with stock airbox in place

I sure as hell was about to run my ass out there and remove that lol

Great thread Slowhatch.

I did something similar, but left the top 1/2 remaining to (possibly) direct air downward toward the intake mani.

Your way may very well be more effective. In any event, a great, cheap mod.

Got any numbers yet?

+1

+5whp on the butt dyno

2-3 dregrees of cooler temps

weight reduction

No numbers yet. My car has been on jackstands since Saturday. Not likely something that can be measured but will hopefully reduce heat soak.

@rfinkle2 did you cut your air duct?

Mine is 2 pieces held together with oem tabs / channels.

I'll have to take a closer look at mine tomorrow. So you separated the two halves and re installed the top half ?

In for numbers

Yes. I think either way will provide quite a bit more air to be distributed more evenly across the engine bay.

Not to be a dick but I thought this was obvious when pulling stock intake out. BUT its probably a great idea to bring it up. I'm sure theres quite a few people out there that dont realize they have a giant plastic tube blocking their engine bay for no reason.

Brownies always need help with the obvious.

^yes but in my defense i havent pulled my stock intake yet

I didn't realize that part would come out. I thought it was part of the radiator shroud. Oh well. Good thing I didn't post this in the how to section.

See post #7

I saw this thread this morning, and went and yanked that fucker out. However, maybe it's different for the 2012, I only needed a Phillips to pop the 2 plastic rivets off, and not a 10mm. Anyways, after yanking it off, I looked thru front of the car to see if any openings were newly found, and I didn't see anything lol. But, I was in a rush to do this before leaving for work.

Driving on the hwy, I did notice that my bats were as low as +11, and as high as +19. I'm
Back to my stock tmic, awaiting a new one from cp-e, and have done the tb coolant bypass.
Normally, with the stock tmic on, I would see +25/30. So I'm thinking that little piece of shit gone did something lol. Now I'm really curious what it will be cruising once my cp-e tmic goes back on. But either way, good shit @SLOWHATCH.

I thought about removing this, but left it in because it seemed like it was still feeding cool air in the area of the intake. I think I will try this and get before and after IAT's, and let you guys know.

I think I might have replaced mine with bolts a while back, so that's probably the reason. I forgot about that. As far as the openings go, It allows more air to pass over the radiator. It's only like a 1.5" space. It's been there all along but it was blocked. There is also a piece of foam that runs along the top of radiator. I removed part of that as well. From the opening over the smile I can reach in over the radiator now to the bay, But it's a tight space.

I'm not here to convince anyone one way or the other but I would think with it gone more air is able to pass through. Let us know if you find out. Hopefully my intermediate shaft will arrive today so I can drive my car again. This sucks!!!

Well hell that explains it. I'm asian. I cannot see small spaces like that.

...for what it's worth you can do this mod on the stock air box. The hole this feeds air into is below the filter so there's really no negative side effects and when I did it the throttle felt a lot more responsive. Whether or not it made power is debatable but it "felt" "peppier". Point being you can do it on the stock air box

Cool air in the whole bay>cool air near the intake. I wasn't disagreeing with your logic at all. Just kind of thinking out loud, the IAT numbers are just for show and tell. If I get free time this weekend I will hook it up.

Wasn't implying you were contradicting me or whatever. My bad. I just wanted to let it be known I have no substantial evidence that this would be a worth while mod or not. So I would like to hear of other's experiences with this also either way whether good or bad results. Not having my car on the road is killing me.

I removed all of this at the time I installed my Sri. I thought everyone did. Hmm

Im gonna give this a shot in the morning. Normally I'll be about 10 to 12 over ambient. So if i get closer to ambient then obviously this does something.

I'm under the impression that most SRI installs said to remove a similar, but different duct from the car, and even that was optional. Still, I removed what was left over from my SRI install, which is what is in the OP. It might just be me, but I noticed my cruising BATs come down to a little above IATs significantly faster than before. If the car sits for 30 mins, then my BATs are easily ~135F+, and they stay well above 100F even after 10-20 minutes of freeway cruising. Today, it dipped under 100 and stayed about 10F above IATs, and without having to floor the accelerator to cool BATs via WMI hehe.

Theres actually 2 pieces that connect to the stock airbox, and I like most people only removed the funnel tube. To be honest, I never even knew it was there until yesterday morning. @dantes5823 was with me last night, and said he was doing it this morning, hes got the cpe top mount now and see's about 10 over ambient. I'm curious to see what it will be like once he removes his piece.

getting dressed and gonna do it now ;)

Edit: All done. And i got zip ties to match my phillyb hates me! sticker.

Glad you guys are getting to try this out. My intermediate shaft was supposed to arrive via fed ex yesterday and they seem to have lost my package. FML, It's going to be a while before my car is back on the road it seems.

:censored::angryfire::banghead::cussing::mad2:


:bebored:

Me too, I did something similar. I left the box thingy in its entirety, and the one piece of hose, super glued it together. Now it shoots ambient air right on the cone air filter :-) While moving my IATs are at ambient. or +/- 4*F

I had done this mod shortly after I did the SRI my first thought was it was good to send the air to the SRI but then I thought let me try this being that our BAT's are so high, I dont have any numbers to back it up but I did compare temps with a buddy of mine and me having the corksport TMIC and him being stock there was about a 20 degree difference if I recall correctly and this is on the highway. just my 2 cents.

If you have a corksport TMIC and he has the thin, shitty ass stock tmic, that could explain the 20 degrees difference. I'm all for this mod but thats not where the difference lies.

isnt the BAT sensor on the intake manifold? wouldn't directly cooling that off be much more effective than directing cooler flow to the intake, which then flows into a hot turbo?

@phate i hadnt removed this piece when we did the dyno. perhaps my BATs wouldn't have been aaaassss bad without it.

BAT sensor is in the intake mani. It might help. Your car had the highest BAT's I've seen on the dyno, so let's get some other 2nd gens in here that I've worked with.

@Travis, @JTMS3 - Did you guys remove this? Who else has a 2nd gen in IL?

I used to be all for the idea of leaving the stock air ducting in place, to provide direct airflow to the SRI, but I found that I end up with more physical deposits on the filter (straw, dirt, etc.) more than anything. Driving without the ducting in place yesterday, I saw IATs were the same, but BATs would recover from heat soak significantly faster than before, and the difference between BATs and IATs was not as big.

There's definitely something to be said about having airflow directed onto the manifold, over/around the engine, and out of the rear of the hood with the cowling removed.

No I left that piece as is... Im running FM tho so it really isn't something I think is going to do much. With removing that piece I would think TM guys would see a decease in BATs since some airflow is hitting that area. It would explain IATs staying the same while BATs are improving.

Da fuck? My car whistles now when going about 40mph. Must be the mad airflow I got now! I'm gonna play around with the zip tie setup to see if I can get it to go away. I had to remove my TMIC to get it out due to my CAI, by the way

Good shit man, thanks!

Well good thing im lazy, I dont want my car whistling dixie down the highway, has anyone else who has done this noticed this sound?

Well Fed Ex found my damn part that went missing and I received it today so hopefully I'll get to drive tonight or tomorrow and post my impressions. Glad to see more peeps chiming in with their impressions.

I didnt hear any whistling hahaha, but if you hear that, that means you aint go fast enough. Step on it son.