Tear it off and leave it off. It serves no purpose at all. Volvo engineers were stupid enough to put the heated air source on inter cooled 740's. Heat the air and then send it though the intercooler. Dumb. They deleted it on the later cars hoping no one would notice.
No modern car uses heated air at this point. It isn't done. On carbureted engines it allowed the choke to come off faster, but on fuel injection its a waste of time.
Lots of folks have reported that the blend valve sticks on the hot air position and wipes out the mass meter. Thats reason enough to pitch the heat shield.
In the warm states it makes no difference. With a mass meter it probably make no difference in Alaska.