What exactly does it mean to "gut" your airbox? And does it make a significant difference?

you cut out the other plastic piece in the upper part of the airbox. there is a noticable increase in power but not a real significant gain. more high rpms than low rpms. you will know what i am saying about the plastic piece when you pull the upper part off and look at it.

Like he said.
Mine'* a '96 series 2, so I don't know how much it changed from '95, but when I opened the air box to replace the filter I saw this plate that covered the entire air filter, save a small cone shaped thing that points the air downstream to the TB. I notice that the filter only got dirty where the cone was at, which is about 6 square inches out of 100.
On mine, that plate thing was welded in to the air box. I took a drill and drilled out the welds, and popped out the plate, cone and all. You could use a Dremel. I started with a utility knife, but the plastice was too tough.
After the plate is out, the air flows completely through the whole filter, then is narrowed down by the box to the size of the tube on it'* way to the TB.
It has to let more air into the engine that having that old plate in there.
Between removing that and the MAF screen, I noticed a more responsive engine, and it accelerates harder as the RPMs build, where before I removed these things, the acceleration was more linear through the RPM range.
You will notice a little more intake growl.

Hey Sol, the newer airboxes (ie 92+) are far more complicated then the old school previous gen airbox. Apparently, inside the box there is a lot of obstructions restricting air flow.

The only thing you might wanna watch for is turbulent air that evantually reaches the TB. I'm simply paraphrasing...I know Dr. Suess and Drifter had success gutting a newer airbox. So did Tamara, her car is a 94...Maybe they will chime in here and assist

Hey Buzzbomber, I assume you and I have the same airbox. Have you noticed a big change? and did you leave your MAF screen in place?

All I really noticed is that I uh....need a new air filter . no really i do. but I did notice a little increase in **** and get. it has a noticable power increase in the high rpms and it probably gives a little bit of torque but i can't really notice it. It'* free so you cant beat that. when i gutted i noticed there were plastic pieces still protruding(like circles) so i took our die grinder and made it flat. figured it would give it straight through flow. I did remove the maf screen also and that made a big difference. you can hear the air gush in now through the throttle body. Not near as loud as a cai but it'* free too! My idle is kind of messed up because my car needs a tune up. 231,000 miles on the car! I think the idle is because i need o2 sensors.

Should I be gutting...? cuz I kinda wanna wait until someone else throws an ADTR or DP short RAM intake into there 87-91, then find out how it works...or if it works

Sorry Sol, I kinda hijacked your thread... :(

Yep.. First thing is the airbox resonator that'* so restricting within the Airbox.. Briminder hit it right. I don't know if a 96 is the same as 97 ( It should therotically ) but my airbox has only a small circle opening that doesn't use the full whole size that'* on the metal frame in front of the airbox thus restricting air. On Boo'* ( Drifter'* ) airbox ( 97 ) the airbox opening is Oval and therefore doesn't need any cuttin to the front of the airbox. Remove the resonator in the airbox ( which causes a lot of turbulance ) and you shouldn't have a problem with removing the MAF screen ( incorrect reading of the MAF sensor due to turbulance ).. again it'* free mods.. so it'* a bonus

Great! Thanks for all the help. I'll look in to that when I get some free time.

Tamara, I see in your sig that you have a custom CAI. What did you do for that?

It'* a pipe attached from my air box going down to behind the fog light so the air is pushed into the pipe.

What kind of pipe do you use? Is it something I can get from a hardware store?