I got that little black plastic plug that goes in the fender-enginebay wall. It blocks the hole that is left when you remove the intake scoop with a cold air intake setup. The car didn't feel quite as fast afterwards. I was thinking I would get a benefit from blocking heat from the engine bay. Apparently this is not the case yet.

My hypothesis is that the fender well in front of the brake (where the resonator or cone filter resides) is sealed a little better than I thought so much of my airflow to the intake was being sucked through that hole. With it blocked, my cold air intake is feeling a little more like stock (slower).

I need to do some ducting to get more cold air in from the OUTSIDE. Will post the results when I get them (probably this weekend).

-nick luhr

by the way, that plastic plug is stock on a 2.5RS i believe (somebody correct me) so if you go to the dealer and ask for it, be sure he knows this is not for the WRX. It cost me about $13.

driving to work this morning, I had forgotten that I put the plug in and was thinking to myself "man it must be really humid out...the car is feeling kinda sluggish" then I remembered the change I made to my car....that damn plug is definitely causing a slowdown. NEED TO DUCT SOME AIR TO THE FENDER WELL!

-nick

That's why I, along with a lot of people, kept the stock ram air scoop. No matter what you think, it DOES work and certainly doesn't provide an adverse effect.

Originally posted by sorny
That's why I, along with a lot of people, kept the stock ram air scoop. No matter what you think, it DOES work and certainly doesn't provide an adverse effect.

It works but it's not because it is scooping any air. The thing is totally blocked by the hood. It only allows a path for air to flow. If it makes any difference, I removed the hood scoop completely leaving just the hole there... (I have a cold air setup so there's nothing to attach the scoop to on the end)

I felt absolutely no degredation in performance from doing this. It was only when I blocked the hole that I noticed any loss. Opening up the fender well to cold air can only be better than drawing in the warm engine-bay air. I'll be doing it as soon as I get a spare hour or so. I'm thinking that scoop below the foglight that is currently ducted to cool the brakes may work.....

In that case, if you pull of the plastic around the bottom of the fender then you will get some air in there. Other then that and removing the foglight, I don't know how you'd get fresh air in the fender.

1st Wrong: The scoop DOES scoop air, theres a cutout in the upper part of the grille to allow air into it, so its not getting air from the engine bay, also if u cut a little bit of the hood weather stripping that lies in front of the scoop it will alow more air to reach it as well. Look a little closer before jumping to conclusions. Subaru didnt spend $$$ to put that scoop there to look pretty.

2nd Wrong: The tiny little brake cooling duct is way too small to allow enough air to solely feed the intake. Plus let it serve its original purpose. It's a FUNCTIONAL cooling duct, leave it there. Once again Subaru didnt spend $$$ on that idea for ****z and giggles. You can however ditch one fog light and use that hole combined with maybe some 3" home depot tubing, I would imagine that would be adequate....until of course your first off-road or rainy weather excursion. Good luck pulling all the water and sand out of your engine!

I think leaving well enough alone is a good idea, although I do admit I removed the silencer but only by cutting the bottom half of it off so that I still retain the entrance of air into the fender from the scoop, and the original size and shape entrance to the airbox, toppe off with a K&N panel filter.

I would highly discourage removing the air scoop funnel, it does serve a very important purpose.

Originally posted by Samirr76
I think leaving well enough alone is a good idea, although I do admit I removed the silencer but only by cutting the bottom half of it off so that I still retain the entrance of air into the fender from the scoop, and the original size and shape entrance to the airbox, toppe off with a K&N panel filter.

I would highly discourage removing the air scoop funnel, it does serve a very important purpose.


I done the same thing, Hacked silencer the same way and added K&N. If you'll notice, the air scoop funnel or whatever you want to call it does stay pretty cool to the touch after driving so you know it's get some cooler air in there.

just my 2 cents

i removed the "wanna be ram air scoop" and the snorkus the first day i had my car. no real gains, turbo spooled a *bit* better, so maybe call it a little better drivablility. then I went to home depot, and bought some flexible 3" aluminum tubing. I ran that fromn right behind the fog lights, as close to the side vent on the front bumper. then routed that DIRECTLY into the air box. I pretty much sealed it. Then I put in a K&N, and the results were very positive. It isnt like adding a bigger better intercooler, and I wouldnt expect any *butt dyno* increases, but it certainly helps the drivability.

i did the same thing on my RS, and never had any dirt or water show up in my airbox. i am in the bay area, and we dont get a ton or rain. so take that for what its worth. that is my experience.

josh

I chopped the silencer and put it back with the ram air scoop. I did not cap the bottom of the Y from the silencer. I put a K&N panel filter in the stock airbox and reset the ECU properly...
NOW MY CAR DRIVES LIKE ARSE. It's very slow, the engine bogs and stutters under acceleration. What the hell? The only positive is it sounds meaner.

-Mike

Originally posted by SleeperWRX
I chopped the silencer and put it back with the ram air scoop. I did not cap the bottom of the Y from the silencer. I put a K&N panel filter in the stock airbox and reset the ECU properly...
NOW MY CAR DRIVES LIKE ARSE. It's very slow, the engine bogs and stutters under acceleration. What the hell? The only positive is it sounds meaner.

-Mike

I did the same exact thing but mine runs better if anything. Did the K&N seal good? When you reset the ECU, did you follow instructions or did you just hook it back up and drive like a maniac? It sounds like it could possibly be a lot of things.

The K&N seems to seal fine...The Y is going into the airbox and ram air scoop properly. I disconnected the neg. term. on the battery for 2 hours...reconnected...started the car and let it idle until the fan came on and went off (took about 20 minutes). Then I turned it off...waited a couple seconds...turned it back on and drove it hard. I've since driven it a couple times and it's still doing the same thing.

HELP!

-Mike

Sounds like you did everything right, so I'm out of ideas...

Originally posted by Samirr76
1st Wrong: The scoop DOES scoop air, theres a cutout in the upper part of the grille to allow air into it, so its not getting air from the engine bay, also if u cut a little bit of the hood weather stripping that lies in front of the scoop it will alow more air to reach it as well. Look a little closer before jumping to conclusions. Subaru didnt spend $$$ to put that scoop there to look pretty.


Not to flame you or anything, but are you even paying attention? I don't have the little plastic elbow that hold the scoop in place anymore since i have a cold air intake. Therefore, that hole into the fender well where the intake scoop would normally allow air to flow is wide open to the hot engine air by about a 1/2" all the way around. Also, i've looked pretty closely at that "scoop" and no it's not getting any cold air from above the grill. The rubber seal on the hood completely blocks it. All the air it is flowing is coming from in front of the radiator through the main part of the grill. It's not functional as a "Ram" at all. Merely a path for pressure equalization between the atmosphere and the intake manifold.


2nd Wrong: The tiny little brake cooling duct is way too small to allow enough air to solely feed the intake. Plus let it serve its original purpose. It's a FUNCTIONAL cooling duct, leave it there. Once again Subaru didnt spend $$$ on that idea for ****z and giggles. You can however ditch one fog light and use that hole combined with maybe some 3" home depot tubing, I would imagine that would be adequate....until of course your first off-road or rainy weather excursion. Good luck pulling all the water and sand out of your engine!


This isn't my final solution, but merely an option. Since the ducts don't blow directly on the brake calipers/disks they are not all that much more functional. If you think that duct couldn't feed the intake, i don't know what would. That thing has a cross sectional area at least equal to a 2" pipe which combined with the other poor sealing around the fender well plastic liner would allow more than enough air to flow. I DO plan to look for other options before I do this though.


I think leaving well enough alone is a good idea, although I do admit I removed the silencer but only by cutting the bottom half of it off so that I still retain the entrance of air into the fender from the scoop, and the original size and shape entrance to the airbox, toppe off with a K&N panel filter.

I would highly discourage removing the air scoop funnel, it does serve a very important purpose.

I removed it the other day and it felt no worse. If anything it was better (although that wouldn't make sense) but it was certainly not worse.

p.s.

i've been through every iteration of modifying the stock intake setup from using a K&N to removing the scoop to removing the resonator (chopped low and chopped high), and now hte cold air. The more of the intake path I've removed the better it got. Having tubes for the air to flow through only adds resistance.

I took out the silence and just left the "ram air scoop". I noticed that the ram air scoop does not quite meet flush with the hole in the fender bet I figured it was close enough. I really did not want to take the hack saw to it just in case I chose to put it back on later. I really haven't noticed any differences at all I didn't even bother using weather stripping or anything to help the seal between the ram air and the hole, nor did I change the air filter. Should I bother with any of this or have any concerns?

I originally installed the TCG intake thing which came with the plastic plug for the fender. After reading some of this thread I decided to put the snorkel back on and come up with some kind of make shift seal out of household materials to close the gap between the hole and the snorkel. I was contemplating hacking up the silencer but I decided not to. Now that I have the snorkel back on I can readily plug and unplug the hole to see if I can feel any difference, and I can't. If there is a difference either way then it's something real small.

Isn't that when you stick it in reverse? :D

I've just got a short extension of PVC pipe from the airbox jutting into the fenderwell plus I added the K&N. No real butt dyno gains, but it seems to drive a little better...

I've noticed a lot of people talk about the K&N not sitting right... is this a common problem? I've got the 33-2031-2 and it seemed to drop right in...

Box clamped shut just fine... Maybe it was too easy? :D



Originally posted by Samirr76
Good luck pulling all the water and sand out of your engine!

I first tried just completely removing the silencer and the intake snorkel (using a K&N panel filter). There was a performance improvement but I wasn't too fond of the sound. I then replaced the intake snorkel which made no apparent performance difference, but I still didn't like the sound of the car with the silencer completely removed. I then did the silencer mod and left the snorkel in place too. The car seemed to run best this way and it sounds nice too, complete with the sound of the BOV and turbo spooling. When I did the silencer mod, I didn't just cut it off at the narrow neck just above the tank. I actually used my dremmel tool to cut and shape the Y at the silencer to allow a smooth transition of air from the snorkel and allow plenty of fender air to enter also. Anyway my WRX loves it's snorkel in place with the silencer mod. Although it is not a true "ram air" intake just looking at and studying the design you can clearly see that it will feed some cold air into the fender at speed.

Punk