Now, I am looking to gut my airbox, but I get several warnings from the different Camaro Performance books I have read, they talk about water damage. My 88 Iroc has the cool/ram air induction(whatever you call it), and I have already drilled holes in the airbox, if I gut them completely what is the chance that I will get water into the TPI setup or into the engine block itself(and I have heard and seem the ugliness water does to a car). My MAF is descreened, I am running a 58mm TB, and I have K&N airfilters installed. This car is my daily driver, for now I am looking for a POS to drive but summer is coming and I dont really worry or have the cash, and I have and will have to drive it in the rain, also have a marading Ex-g/f who is slightly crazy(don't really worry but I can't be to safe). So any insight, warnings, Go for it's, or whatever is helpful, thanks.

 

My buddy has an 86 IROC and he cut his airboxes out, and one day after it was raining pretty hard...we took his air filters out and they were practically dripping

And he was wondering why his car was running like crap.

I personally wouldn't do it to my car, but many other will tell you to do it. I did take out those baffles though (the curved things).

 

wait i thought taking out the baffles is gutting the airbox, if it is not that then what is it? and what exactly is a baffle then(i am slowly gettin lost)

 

Gutting your airbox, is totally cutting out the bottom and sides of the housing where those baffles screw onto. This is so your filters are exposed to air on the bottom and sides.
I've got an '86 IROC in which I've done that to...it seriously is a noticable gain, and I've never had a water problem.

Not my pic...but so you can see what I'm talking about:

 

It made a very noticable change in my car. The throttle response was much better. I rarely drive my car when it is raining so I haven't had any problems with the filter getting wet.

 

This topic has come up before, to answer I will quote my personal favorite reply to this question

Originally posted by Ed Maher:

"I don't see how you can reasonably get any sort of problem by cutting your airboxes. Even if a landmine exploded in a huge puddle directly under the airboxes in the front of your car while you were under full load on a dyno i don't think enough water could get past all the junk in the front end to actually hurt your engine."

Gut the airboxes, they mean well but they end up just being a restriction. I've never heard of dripping wet filters, and I drive my car in the rain AND have ram air tubes directly to the filters. Also you need more than a few drops of water to damage the engine. Have you all forgotten that water is a byproduct of combustion? How do you think it gets in the exhaust?

 

my car never sees rain... it saw it saturday really quick.. but i got her in the garage fast... wheww..


Im doing it... gotta break 14's on free mods!

 

i did the Ram air mod on the tech article site and could tell a huge difference. it pulls so much more at 45mph+ at the time i had an auto and when it hit second gear-- it pulled pretty good. definitely recommend the mod from the Tech site..

go here

 

heres mine......completely sealed from the fog lights to the filters with RAM AIR DUCTING..removed the fogs too, so I get all the air I can...I wanna get it dynoed to see "really" how much this is worth.



oh my! gotta go do another post to get to 667....whew!

 

This is incorrect. When my IROC was new I got caught in a sudden downpour and while turning at an intersection I went through a foot deep puddle, enough water was kicked up that the engine ingested some. In the process of ingesting the water it burned out the MAF and ruined the filters.

 

Actually, what he said is still true in this case. Your problem was with the MAF sensor.... not the engine. This sounds like a freak incident anyway. The thought of a drop of water having the trajectory to go up past the filters and still have enough velocity to hit the hot wire in the MAF airborne is almost ludicrious especially since the airbox tapers. Are you sure that puddle caused your MAF to crap out? Drenching the filters is a possibility though with a BIG puddle. Using oiled cotton filters or better yet Andris Skulte's ram air design for better power will resolve this problem however.

 

Well, as I entered the puddle the check engine light was not on, after ingesting the water and restartng it (it stalled from all the water it swallowed) the check engine light was on and diagonstics said it was fried. It was no freak accident that the water went up in there, when the front air dam hit the water it acted like a ram, forcing the water upward and into the air intake tract. If I had been going faster it probably would have been enough to get large amounts of water into the cylinders, causing all sorts of problems.

 

thats a chit load of water! it was deep enuff for the front air dam to scoop it up, and and launch it into the intake under the filters? come on man... thats a FREAK think... how big was this puddle? you sure this wasnt a lake or something?

 

As I said, the puddle was a foot deep, it covered the entire intersection. It had been raining for only 10-15 minutes, but very hard. To top it off I was only going about 5 mph or so (the speed limit on base was 25). It really is not hard to get these cars to ingest water and a foot deep puddle is not a "freak occurance", most places I have been will do that at intersections when a sudden down pour hits.

 

DAM a foot! ouch... where do you live? i have never seen a foot of rain at an intersection.. im not flamming you, im just wana know to stay away from where u live!

 

That was when I was stationed in North Dakota. I have seen the same things in many places, Pheonix, AZ, PA, South Carolina, Georgia, Germany...lots of places.

 

Bringing a old thread back from the dead

Just "Gutted" my boxes today. I will tell you right now I definitly noticed a difference in the performance of the car and for some odd reason doing this also stopped the trouble code the maf sensor kept popping. Odd.

 

Sounds like a very cheap fix... more throttle responce AND fixed your MAF problems... cant beat that

 

Gutted mine about one and half months ago and noticed some improvement, and also have driven in the rain several times, no problems. A full gut job too, bottoms cut right underneath the lip.

 

now that im home... and i wana do something right now... humm... what should i use? Dremmel or box cutter?

 

ive never had a problem with the hollow air box and i even took out the plastic peice seperating the air box area from the radiator and bottom of the car.

 

lol thats my car

 

I used a dremel on mine. I completely gutted mine and I went through at LEAST a foot of water in a flash flood of sorts that we had and I didn't have any problems with mine. If your driving slow it shouldn't be a problem, if you are going 30 then hit a foot a foot of water it might get some on the filters, but I just can't see how anybody can get those things soaked.

 

It ain't hard. Base speed limit 25 mph, slowed for a turn at an intersection...glub, glub, glub..sputter...stallllll.

 

water on the filter...i just dont see it happenen. u guys r cursed or somethin.

 

HAHAHA!
anyway... what bit wont get to hot and start to melt all over my dremmel? might have to cool of the big a few times... oh well.. its almost 3am and im bored as chit... off i go.. ill be back to report!

 

I just used a cutout wheel that I had for mine. If you kept it at a low speed you shouldn't melt the plastic or anything, I just left mine on high and cut through it, I melted the plastic some but nothing big.

 

if your completely sealed like mine are..I bet you get all kinds of water in if you hit a puddle.....

if you take a smoke maker and put it in front of the fog light holes......it sucks what ever is in front...BIG time when you give it some gas...

 

oh well, i went downstairs to watch some tv really quick... fell right asleep... hehe. OH well. anyway, smoke maker? like a fog machine? how would you hook that up? hehe oh well... im gunna take it out for a before and after right now...

 

not really a smoke maker...just somthing that makes smoke like a cig....or burning piece of paper....so you can see where the air is going.

but mine are completely sealed all the way from the foglight opening to the filters....air doesnt escape anywhere...I even kept my foglights removed to get all the air I can...but I did put a piece of wire mesh in place so nothing big get up in there....when ever I go to the track I'll just remove the mesh and the filters...should be a big improvment.

 

wish, do NOT remove the filters at the track! there has been no gain with them removed. You need thoes!

 

sorry your wrong....

i took my filters out at the track and gained 1 mph and a tenth

 

dude, thats just dumb... a tenth... are you for real? could of been a lower air temp or better traction... you cant even say you gained a tenth with the filters out... plus that taking out the filters is a bad idea anyway. dumb move man..

 

as long as no bugs getting in , I dont see a problem with it....When I ran for the first time at Atlanta the guys there told me to take the filters out...I was like,,,WHA? anwyay, I dont know if its good or not but I dont see any harm in it as long as nothing goes flying up in there. Seeing the MAF screens are out too..theres nothing keeping anything from going straight into the engine. so it might be a bad thing...


But with them in, it only seems that they would hold a little force of air into the TB...

I dont know...Im just a 38 year old beginner...LOL

 

i gained my highest mph with the filters off. so its for real. traction was relatively the same. its not like i drove across country with no filters and yea i am for real.

lol...looks like my friend didnt log out...LOL

 

Regardless of whether or not it gives you .1 of a sec taking the filters out is dumb. How much is your engine worth? Would you pay that much for a .1 of a second (that hasn't even been proven)? Tracks are full of gravel, sand, rubber, and what not....sooner or later your going to get burned. Your car goes faster without alot of safety features like a roll cage, sfc's, etc. so they are just there to slow you down right?

 

After all the work i'd done to my iroc it still felt like it was starving for air-even after i installed 3" cutout with Mccord power plate(love it!!). Gutted my airbox and WOW it woke up!! Cant wait to get it to the track! Smurf