Stock Air Lid

**Wormwood** · 11-17-2022, 10:49 AM

i would like to keep my T.A as stock looking as possible. is there a way to hollow out, or redesign the stock air lid to make it perform like an aftermarket one?

**sjgreen6** · 11-20-2022, 10:52 AM

What you are looking for is commonly called the Free Ram Air Mod. By making some small trims to the bottom of the air box you can introduce air flow from the under the car into the air box when the car is moving. Some will argue that this will increase air temperature at the intake because the air passes over the radiator. I've never seen any actual reliable testing to show an improvement, but it is very common and SLP also had a kit that included a stainless-steel funnel that would mount below the air box and included the same mod. The funnel theoretically eliminated the heating from the radiator. There is an excellent write-up at www.InstallUniversity.com . Once you get into the site (it is no longer maintained and is becoming flaky so if you get it, grab copies of everything that looks interesting before it goes away), click on Install Documents then Free Ram Air.

**Too Fast** · 11-20-2022, 03:06 PM

Or, one could internally eliminate the internal baffles so the airflow is cleaned up. Basically what the aftermarket lids do, losing the turbulence that the silencers added. A proven, easy 5-10 HP gain.

**Wormwood** · 11-21-2022, 11:40 AM

Originally Posted by Too Fast

Or, one could internally eliminate the internal baffles so the airflow is cleaned up. Basically what the aftermarket lids do, losing the turbulence that the silencers added. A proven, easy 5-10 HP gain.

so do what sjgreen6 says in addition to this? or just remove the baffles?

**sjgreen6** · 11-24-2022, 06:23 AM

Simplest way to achieve what you want without any permanent modifications is to just replace the stock lid with an aftermarket. They are not all equal as some are better at sealing to the air filter than others. You can pick up an SLP or other used lid pretty reasonably on ebay or other sale sites. The best aftermarket (OEM on Firehawks and some SLP SS cars) lid in my opinion is the Donaldson Blackwing lid. It has all of the engineering and excellent fitment of an OEM lid and will work as good or better than any of the others along with near perfect fit and sealing on the air filter. Downside is, they are hard to find and very expensive ($300+).