I removed that rusty in the way piece of junk a couple of years back. Went over to the Air Intake and plugged the hole where the hose was supposed to go. Also pulled the entire flapper assembly out of the air box.

As far as problems with emissions inspections, if it looks like something is missing or you manage to get an inspector that actually knows 240's is about the only way this can be an issue. I took a wire brush and gave the manifold a good scrubbing when I was replacing the manifold gaskets. You can't tell that anything was removed once the rust pattern matches. Inga passed two emissions tests with flying colors with the thing removed.

The only thing that it might have done was acted as a heat shield for the back side of the alternator. Not sure if it was effective (and it most likely isn't), but I finally traced a voltage drop in Inga to the regulator on my 100 amp 740 rebuilt alt. If you stopped car after it was warm, when you started it back up the voltage output would drop. If you sprayed the regulator with a shot of freeze spray the voltage would jump back up. Art suggested using an external regulator and he was right. Moving the regulator over to the firewall solved the drop. But I suspect that there was little to no shielding of heat once that metal cover heated up anyway.

Regards,

Paul