Cold Air Intake DIY for AWD by CleanCL

3 minute read

Cold Air Intake DIY for AWD 

Compliments of CleanCL @ https://acurazine.com

5-23-2009

So I dug into the intake system on my car today. Some mixed news is that the an intake for the 3.5L motor will probably fit, but you would lose your driver side brake duct. The stock system is very convoluted and more than likely only designed to reduce sound. It is a little tricky to get the parts out, but can be done with basic hand tools. You have to remove the battery and tray.  

Here are all of the parts removed besides the stock airbox:

At first I just removed everything but realized that the brake cooling duct bolts to part of the resonator. So I broke the resonator apart from the tube that goes up to the airbox. I bolted the resonator back up and attached the brake cooling duct. It is the part at the bottom right of the picture above. Here it is mounted up:

Now I was going to stop there, but the inlet to the stock airbox is near the engine compartment. It is all the way to the left and the battery blocks off MOST of, if any, hot air that is over there. But to help keep the air as cool as possible, I chopped off the tube that leads to the resonator, so that it comes down and is pulling air from below the engine compartment. The tube I cut is the top right tube in the first picture, I cut just above where it goes into the angle. Here is what it looks like:

Just an update:

I've removed the K&N and put in a Fram. The noise around 4,000rpm is gone but the car feels very strong. Sounds almost stock. The car feels like it breathes much better, pretty glad I did this for essentially free.