Stock Airbox Modification

[cymx5]

Just curious who has cut holes or otherwise modified their factory airbox versus replacing it with a prefabricated intake. Was throttle response better? Any significant butt dyno enhancement?

I've got the SU intake tube and will be installing it on my factory box / K&N panel filter soon.

 

[LovinMyMS3]

Many people have done this with good results. Do some searching and you'll find a dozen threads.

 

[cymx5]

Perhaps you can post up the search you used to find these threads? I've tried "airbox, stock airbox, intake modification, airbox modification" and come up short. I've found many prefabbed threads though.

Pictures would be nice as well to see what folks have done.

 

[MSMS3]

Our search engine is not very good. Rather than ask others to do your searching, however bad our search engine might be, try this trick on all your site searches here:

1. Use Google search engine.

2. On the search line use "mazdas247" (without the quotes) as your first search term.

3. Then add your own search terms.

4. This will force Google to go to this forum and allow its much better search engine to then search this forum for your defined terms.

Give this a try. I've found it works very well and will save others from having to try to locate what you are looking for. I hope it works as well for you as it has for me.

 

[cymx5]

Excellent tip, MSMS3. It led me to just about everything I was looking for, and more. (boom05) Thanks for the help, team 247! I will remember that for the future.

 

[mazdaspeedster3]

I would love to hear what your dealership has to say about a bastardized stock air box and problems with the car. Dont want to know how much a new one costs either to replace the "modified" one. SRI to far out of budget?

 

[cymx5]

What's a dealership? I've never been to one for repairs or had warranty issues to clear up, and don't anticipate that in the next 4000 miles. At the most, a new factory airbox would cost rougly $50 from someone who has replaced theirs with a prefabbed intake.

So why do it? It is free. It is easy. It is fun.

 

[mazdaspeedster3]

If performance is the question then why not do it right with a CAI or a SRI?

 

[cymx5]

People define 'doing it right' differently, IMO. I view this as a decision to use a panel filter with the stock airbox versus a cone filter. The tubing with be similar with the SU intake tube.

 

[mazdaspeedster3]

I will tell you this, you will never get the gains out of a "modded" stock air box like you will with a proper SRI/CAI. Plain and simple. A cut up air box is not going to be attractive either. There is a real nice Mazdaspeed CAI for sale in the for sale section... He is willing to deal!

 

[cymx5]

My hood is typically closed while driving. I understand there are mixed feelings on cutting up the factory airbox. The same can be said about the budget suspension on my Miata which cost $400-500 less than the next comparable manufacturers' setups. Now, show me a CAI that has a $0/hp return and you'll have my attention.

 

[SRTie4k]

My hood is typically closed while driving. I understand there are mixed feelings on cutting up the factory airbox. The same can be said about the budget suspension on my Miata which cost $400-500 less than the next comparable manufacturers' setups. Now, show me a CAI that has a $0/hp return and you'll have my attention.

A 3 foot section of laundry hose with an air filter zip tied to the end of it.

 

[SallySpeed3]

A 3 foot section of laundry hose with an air filter zip tied to the end of it.

Hey! Not a bad idea, lol. I would seriously pay money to see that.

 

[SRTie4k]

Hey! Not a bad idea, lol. I would seriously pay money to see that.

At least it might work. Even funnier that there's a pic of a Honda header made with laundry hose floating around on the net somewhere.

 

[cymx5]

I've used furnace ducting in the past, which works fairly well on a older engine which had worse problems than the quality of air it was sucking in. The laundry hose is just about as good as the corregated factory piping. :blah: