As our compadre says, just get the hose "cosmetically" in place for the visual check. I've run 3 240s w/o preheated air, tis true that if the t.stat in the air cleaner box gets stuck you'll get only hot air and eventually fry the Air Mass Meter, imp. and very exp. part.

I imagine the "shroud" that goes around the exhaust man/pipe where the preheat hose attaches is avail as a spare somewhere, that thing was always toast on the cars I got which encouraged me to run only cold air into the intake in the 1st place--never a prob w/ starting, running, even below zero F in NE OH.

I had a "cosmetic", i.e. gutted cat converter on one 83 240, totally devoid of any catylizing power and it passed OH "E check" w/flying colors. Tech told me numbers were lowest he'd ever seen on a car of that vintage!

Have a lovely new stem to stern w/cat exhaust on my 83 245 and now live in a county with no e inspection, what irony...is originally a Kali car, but of course!

Frank near Cleveland
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83 245, 81 244