So I disconnected the aluminum/foil hose that comes off of the exhaust and goes to the airbox. Is it ok to completly remove this hose? Does the excess heat in the engine bay do any damage to anything since its near the turbo and a/c compressor? I just disconnected the side near the airbox and pushed it down.

Inside the airbox I drilled a hole through the side of the flap, then tie wrapped it in the "cold air" position. I believe that the flap wasn't functioning properly and always in the exhaustwarm air position. I noticed that the rubber gaskets were rotten on both sides of the flap. Mostly on the warm air side.

I went for a test drive I found the car does seem to respond a bit better. Tommorow I will know when I go for my hour commute. I'll also know by the way the car warms up, usually the temp gauge is in the middle after only a couple of blocks. It should take longer with it in the cold air position.

Next I might try a ram air system, I already knocked out that 3 or 3.5" inch round plate thats in front of the airbox, underneath the lights. You may have noticed this before, it looks stamped to me. I might try a pvc type ram air.

How do you remove the airbox? I saw one bolt and undid that, but the box still seemed stuck to the firewall. Does it just pull out?

I know the airbox gets its cold air from the fender, but exactly where does the air come in? I saw a spot underneath the left side of the bumper.

Thanks for any help/advice.

Open the airbox, take out the air filter, remove ALL the stuff underneath it(foam, the "cone" over the inlets, etc), remove the airbox and take out the horn on the fender side inlet (you may have to remove a Torx screw to do this, I did), replace the airbox, replace the air filter, close everything back up. You should notice a difference and be able to hear moving air.
--
Cullen Wassell / Newmarket NH - '90 764ti / 250,000

THanks Cullen. Ok, what I did was just tie wrapped down the flap to the hot air side (so I just get cool air). I noticed a small phillips screw on top of the fender side horn, what does that do? Does that hold the horn in? Can it come out without having to remove the airbox?

No the horn can't cone out without having to remove the air box. I had to remove the box, when I removed my horn... not long before I did the ram air mod.

That system is actually an emissions feature designed to reduce emissions during warm up period. Some state's emission inspection will expect to see that hose in place although they will not inspect the thermostat flap operation. I left my hose in place with the thermostat removed and the flap permanently set to cold position.
--
David Hunter

1. There will be no excess heat in the engine bay by removing the hose, as the engine exhaust is what supplies the heat in the hose in the first place, so no worries there.

2. The cold air mod is nothing new. A lot of people do the knockout behind the headlight thing. I did something a little different: http://www.megspace.com/cars/oileater/

3. As you suspected the air box is only held in place by one bolt, hoses, interference in the form of wiring, etc. Once the bolt is removed, believe it or not you need to pull away from the fender to get the intake runner out of the fender then work the whole unit up and out of the way. It can be done with the intercooler in place, but as you have to remove one (intercooler) hose, you might be better off removing the second intercooler hose, both top retaining brackets, and pulling your intercooler assembly right up straight out of the way, to give you some more room on the one corner of the air box, by the intercooler inlet. BTW the tricky part is not getting it out, but getting it back in, as the fresh air runner needs to be seated in the fender before it will be happy.

4. I have no idea where mine used to get air from other than to say "the fender" You are on your own on that one.

i go to your site and when everything loads for the ram air mods, i get text and no pictures. it says the files are not there when i looked for just the pictures.
am i the only one who got that problem?

I don't have the foggiest. I just used the link I posted to see if I had the same problem. The pictures load OK for me. Try this... once the page loads and you see all the little red "x"es, take your mouse over the space for the pic. RIGHT click on the picture, and select "Maybe once it loads and the pictures all have little red "X"s in them, select "show picture".

That is the only thing I can think of to help you out.

hm ok, well i've right clicked and tryed show picuture, tryed saving the picture to my hd to view, i just can't get them to load, if you have them on your computer could you email them to me? i'd really like to see all that you did, i'm more of a visual person so

thelost.artof@verizon.net
thanks

Thanks a lot! I'll probably remove the hose when I get home from work tonight. Your site has given me some ideas on how to make my own ram air system.