O.K., today I gutted the air box by removing the tube that goes to the air filter. I believe thats called the resonator, right? Now when I put it back together I noticed another resonator going from the air filter to the big tube that leads to the TB. Should I have cut that one out as well? I'm hoping I did this right.

I thought I would help by posting a few pics of mine.




You can see from this last pic that the desired effect is a straight through shot with no obstructions.

edit. of course the filter has been removed for clarity, no one should ever run without an air filter!

yes it should be a straight shot from one end of the air box to the other

You're air box is different from mine. However, from what it looks like you got rid of both tubes. I didn't notice much gain and my */C isn't any louder than before. Its time to work on the second tube.

remove anything from the inside that does not hold the filter in place.

The end of the airbox, that has the hole on it, which emerges into the bumper, that can also be cut out, into a larger square, I used a hacksaw, and had no problems.

To make a long story short, last weekend I started an attempt at building a cold air box for my SSEi. I am not a crafts person to say the least and after a few hours of sizing, cutting and shaping Plexiglass I came to the conclusion that I just didn't like the way it was coming out, it just wasn't up to the same caliber as Willwren'* heat shield or other members designs.

It'* my opinion that in my vehicle I already have a perfectly good cold air box and that with a little help could work better, so I changed my approach and decided to gut my air box like Pontiacdad and other users in this thread. Over this last week I called around to salvage yards looking for another air box for my 2001, there was no way I was going to trust myself with my stock air box so if anything I at least had a back up plan.

OLBlueEyesBonne found one for me in RI for $50.00 but I found one closer in Auburn Maine for $80.00, yes more money but for only a 1 hour drive I could actually get my hands on this box and check it out to make sure it wasn't trashed.

The box was off a 2002 non-supercharged engine and after 10-15 minutes of staring and comparing I came to the conclusion that the outside dimensions were identical but come to find out there was one small difference which I will show you later in this write up.

The following is what a stock air box looks like for the 2000 / 2003, the 2004 I am not sure of.



In the previous picture the bottom with the foam sits against the front interior engine wall to make a seal against an opening to air behind the drivers side light fixture.

Now if you separate the air box in half you will have the front half which I refer to as the air filter chamber and the rear half which I call the entrance chamber, it'* in the bottom of the entrance chamber where you find the vehicles computer as well.
The next picture shows the front of the air filter cover with the opening for the rubber boot to the engine intake.



That opening is the same size as the intake on the engine, you can see the air filter behind it.

Next is a picture of the rear of the air filter chamber, the intake opening to the air chamber is the same size as the opening to the intake to the engine but they are off-set from each other, if I hadn't already moved the air filter you would probably see that all the dirt was collecting on the filter right behind this opening.



Air moves from the outside of the engine compartment to the intake area of the air box then to the air filter chamber via a reduced opening, through the air filter then into the engine. The thinking is you could possibly reduce the air restriction or increase air flow by making the opening to the air filter the same size as the intake chamber by removing all the excess plastic on the rear of the air filter chamber which is what I did as seen in the following two pictures.




The cuts I made to the rear of the air filter chamber followed the natural contours of the plastic, if you take yours apart you will see what I mean.
While I was doing that I had my wife make some design enhancements to the word "Supercharged" found on the intake housing of the stock air box.



The next picture is the front of the air box without the air filter cover attached, as you can see now you have a much larger opening to the intake chamber of the air box.



But as I mentioned the air filter chamber I used is from a 2002 non-supercharged engine, on the outside everything is identical but the difference was the bottom plastic prongs on the air filter chamber that seat into place on the air intake chamber, the following picture is my original air intake chamber, you will notice the small holes for the prongs are placed in groups of three and two:



...and the non-supercharged air intake chamber holes are grouped in two and three:



So that means that my original air intake chamber will not work with the newly purchased air filter chamber, so the fix is to slightly modify the holes of the original air intake chamber as seen in the next picture.



Last modification is removing what is referred to as the plastic resonator pipe found in the air intake chamber, this is not a big deal as the resonator pipe just un-snaps from the chamber with a little effort.

Last picture is of my newly gutted air box back in place in the engine compartment.



It'* been raining all week so I have not had the chance to really drive test my modifications to my air box but when I can I will let you know if there was any change in performance.

Thanks for reading.

you can cut an extra hole in to the box to add an pipe such as drier ducking and run it down to the fender so you will pull in more air and colder air

Looks like the 2K plus airbox is different than the 96-99 ones. On my 98, I was also able to open the front of the box a lot more.

I promise I'll get some pics this weekend