[TitusForda]

Greetings once again.

After tearing into my Z31 quite throughly I can't help but notice what I perceive to be a design flaw. Before the air filter box on the factory intake there is a small rubber hose-ish device that draws air via a small metal scoop from inside the front leftmost part of the engine compartment. In my mind, it seems like a bit of a waste to produce such an elaborate air system (routing down under the alternator and AC compressor and around to the front of the car) and then designing it to draw what I assume to be hot air from inside the engine compartment. As we all know, colder air is denser, would it not be a better idea to draw fresh cold air from outside the car? It seems to me like Nissan designed 95% of a cold air intake and then decided that they would route it to draw in hot engine compartment air.

To get to the point, has anyone modified theirs to draw cold air, or does anyone have any insight as to why this has been done from the factory?

 

[AZ-ZBum]

remove plastic funnel
remove metal shield.

done.

 

[mwolvin]

It must be an engineer thing-- Mazda did a similar thing with the 2nd gen RX-7. 3" round hose all the way to the airbox, nice, big box, and then a 1/2"x3" opening to suck air thru. . ..

 

[TitusForda]

Sorry, I probably should've been more clear with my original post. I've already removed the funnel and the shield, but as there is no way for outside air to get in under the front of the hood or up over the radiator, this isn't actually much of an improvement. At least that's what I've concluded. There is a thin strip of metal and rubber that sits between the AC heat exchange and the radiator to stop air from traveling up and over the radiator inside the bumper. I assume this is to make the cooling fan more effective, and as such I'm a little hesitant to remove it.

By "modified" I meant cut a hole in the hood, or the bumper, or found another more creative solution to this problem. I know nismo makes cold air kits for this car, has anyone tried one of those?

Thank you all for your continued patience.

 

[AZ-ZBum]

you could always remove the fog light if you're that concerned.

it's not like the engine bay is sealed. there are plenty of gaps between the hood and headlights and such that it won't make a difference.