Gutted airbox....or did I?
 

Well I gutted my airbox today and installed a K&N filter. But did I really do any good? It seems to me that the most restriction is at the inlet area.....the round hole where the air enters the box. If this hole is not enlarged then am I actually allowing more air flow? I removed the wall in the center and the tube but the only advantage I can see is that maybe I have allowed a greater area of the filter to be used. The original filter system promoted only that one spot where the air rushed out of the tube onto the filter. Anyway , the only way I see to "neatly and inconspicuously" enlarge the Inlet is to cut a rectangular hole out of the corner so that it also accepts air from a smaller secondary hole in the inner structure of the left fender. Then you would have to glue foam around this opening so that only cold air from the front left fenderwell is pulled into the box. This would allow slightly more air to be "inhalled". Has anyone done this without obvious visual "hacking"? Can someone post pictures?

bluebullet, Whatever you can do to increase air flow helps. There are aftermarket Fender Well Intakes also. What year & trim level Bonneville do you own? Set that information up in your signature, it will help us help you.

The very first thing I did on my car was gut the airbox then I drove for a day or two till I picked up a K&N. I noticed slighty more boost with just gutting the airbox becasue of that restirction which was removed. & upon adding the K&N the increase was greater. For the most part you aren't going to increase air flow much by doing this it will just lessen the restriction of incoming air. There are fender well intakes for our cars you should check out Intense's website, also search for "FWI or CAI" and you'll see many pictures of people with aftermarket air intakes.


Ed

Blue..if you'll post your year .... I'll take pictures tonight of how I did something similar to what you mention. ;)

Mine is a 2002 SLE. There is really only those two holes in the metal reinforcement to pull air through. Unless you were to cut a hole in the metal front or side panel , and I don't want to do that.