Advice needed: missing air box doohickey

[miker27]

Hey all, I test drove a protege5 today and really loved the car. It has been mechanic owned and appears to be in good rust-free condition. The only flaw i could find was that the black box at the very front of the engine was missing. Thelong horizontal one with what look like two intake holes.

Instead was just an open plastic pipe, running from where the black box bit should be to what I assume is the air filter box. Should I be concerned by this? Anything else to watch out for? (hope that made sense!) Cheers
-Mike

 

[CheeseHelmet]

That's fine, that box does two things:

1. Makes the engine quieter, without it you'll notice a slight low-frequency hum when the throttle is more than half open
2. It gets slightly colder air into the engine since it's located closer to outside of the car

I wouldn't be put off by that, nor would I even bother getting a replacement...

 

[LittleRedWagon5]

I have one of those. If you need one. Its in good shape. Let me know and I"ll work out a deal with you.

 

[JiggaBro]

it sounds like he went for the 'poor mans' cold air intake. its not a bad thing. i know a lot of people that just take it off completely.
i wouldnt bother trying to get a new (used) one because it wont make much of a difference.


what you SHOULD look for is at the tube that connects the air box to the TB. its that tube that has an accordion groove to it.

make sure that there are NO cracks in between the seams or anywhere on that tube. THAT will actually affect performance