Modifying the Stock Air Intake System

[Proto-G]

Thank you. As you can tell I'm still trying to get the hang of this forum with my less than timely response.

[goldstar]

Thank you. As you can tell I'm still trying to get the hang of this forum with my less than timely response.

Better late than never.



Happy Motoring!

[nicodeemus]

I did the mod for the grill and it works great!!! A lot smoother accelleration off the line and as some people have mentioned, it gives a cool whistling sound when revving up. It was kinda funny actually, because I had wondered about the piece of plastic that was blocking the snorkel even before I read this post. It all came about when I replaced the stock air filter with a K&N. I was looking at the snorkel and was wondering where it was getting air from. It made no sense for Mazda to block in the area that we've all cut out. Am going to start building a scoop for it out of fibreglass today. Will get back to everybody with some pics when I'm done. I might slot it to still give the rad some air flow. Thanks again for the great and cheap idea!!

[nicodeemus]

I've now modified both of my Protege's (2001 ES 2.0 manual tranny and 2002 LX 2.0 auto tranny). I've seen improvements in both. The auto's revs drop way faster now and both are a lot smoother and peppier off the line. I've built some custom bug guards for both of them to keep large bugs out of the air filter box. I made them out of speaker grill covers. They have about 1/8" holes in them and don't seem to restrict the air flow. I've tried them both on and off and I can't notice any huge difference in performance, so I'm keeping them on to help with the buggies. Here's some pics....

[ace777]

what about water splashing in it i live in toronto and it pours hard.

[ace777]

were is this screen you removed

[nicodeemus]

ACE777...I didn't remove the MAF screen. I've heard a few different comments on it and decided not to on mine. Without the MAF screen the MAF sensor doesn't get laminar air flow. Swirling air gives the sensor inconsistent readings. I just removed the plastic from the "shelf" in front of the air intake duct. This allows fresh air to get into the duct more easily. Makes quite the difference. I've drove in the rain yesterday and it didn't seem to affect anything. There's enough chambers with holes in the bottoms in the air duct to prevent water from getting to the air box. There shouldn't be any water getting in since the air duct is higher than the area where the air is coming into the compartment from. As long as you don't drive through a puddle that's deeper than your hood, you should be fine. Hope this helps.

[MetalLife]

I'm about to do this modification to my 99 pro LX...

well, i think i came up with an idea of how to "control" the intake system in the matter of whether water gets into it or not, after doing Goldstar's modification... and it is either very simple or very dumb...

what if you take a very hot needle and remove the plastic pieces very carefully... then, adapt some attaching clips to the surroundings of the area and to the little pieces, ...this way if you get into some severe wheater, you can simply clip on the cutted out pieces again... even fold the edges of the pieces with a mini-rubber band so when you clip'em in, it would be like they were never cutted off.... and you can just keep the pieces in the front compartment on the passenger seat!

i might try this and see what happens, because here in oklahoma we get some severe wheater indeed.

=)

[Teletubby]

Anybody still around here?!? lol

Im thinking of modifying the intake on my 2001 protege 2.0 lx. I was wondering however, if someone could give me the pics of that bonzai dudes scoop thing..I cant see them on my computer for some reason. The original mod is easy to do, but the scoop thing interests me I was also thinking of getting a carbon fiber hood with a hood scoop, and connecting the hood scoop to the air intake...anybody know if this is a good idea?

[boboki]

I attached a few pictures of my current CAI.
What I am afraid of is doing this mod becuase I do not actually HAVE a air box.
You can see that I have a cone filter directly sitting in that fiberglas casing, that goes to the MAF ( I think thats it) then off to the engine.
If I take out the plastic to allow more air flow to enter (and I would do it on both sides), I have massive concerns about water getting in my engine.

Also I have a picture of the underside of my hood. There is a stripping there that looks like it seals up the area from the grill all the way to the hood... looking at it from the side it is bent like: (
So even if I remove the plastic, there would be no extra airflow unless I also remove this plastic striping. Is that correct?

Looking for feed back from you "experts" as so far you have proven to be just that and I LOVE extra performance and gas milage gain with little to no price.

(yes those are magnacore wires... I still have not gotten any harnes for them so I have them placed so they are not touching each other and therefore I don't have to worry about any spark jumping from one wire to another and getting misfires)

[Teletubby]

Well I did it. Dosent really give you a lot of extra power in my opinion. Though...it does keep the engine bay cooler so it must do something

[ks2527]

Been a while since I last posted, but I did the cut-out mod about a year ago. And true to goldstar's word, there hasn't been any problems. In these times I am still amazed at the gas mileage I am able to get with this '00 Pro. 450+ miles to a tank.

90,000 miles and still running strong.

[ucMP3]

I'm new to the site and just read this thread for about 10 minutes and went out and removed the MAF restricter and also cut out the plastic piece under the air intake. And the difference is very noticeable. No huge gains by any means, but much smoother acceleration, and no more lag on the initial throttle. Sounds kinda nice too... Nice thread!

[BluPro5]

What if you are missing all piping from the airbox to the radiator support. I yanked all that stuff out a while ago thinking that little bitty intake thing was to restrictive. However i did the cut out mod, could it still be possible to see some results?

I drive a 2003 Protege5 and recently tried this cut out mod in which i took the drivers side of the grill and made a large rectangular cut out in the horizontal grille support, the cut out is perfect but what im worried about is that the cut out is useless since i don't have any means of getting that air directly into the airbox... anyone have a suggestion?

[fastwagon]

Junk yard

I used to live in Chuluota, a long time ago, and I'd go down 419 to route 50 and hang a left and there were salvage yards aplenty. You need a yard that will let you pull the parts, but it shouldn't cost very much.