guys, has anyone modified the very restrictive pipe to the airbox? if you have then what have you done?

i dont know why but the pipe runs across the front grill and has 2 areas where there are multiple holes facing upwards and then it funnels into an oval restrictive shape going into the airbox.

see pic to see what i mean....

I know it looks really bad - but its probably designed to be like that for a reason - it may be to cut the noise ("induction roar") down or a "tuned length" to boost low end power

if you have a stock engine its probably best to leave it how it is

if you are running a remap, a decat, etc etc it may be worthwhile modifying this, if you were prepairing it for competition use you would probably ditch the inlet and fit a BMC or venom fully encapsulated cone filter/ CAIS. Even with this, you probably would not notice a big difference in power, it would probably just pick up/ rev a bit better - a digital tuning box/ remap etc would give you the biggest gains

You could pull the length of pipe off (leaving just the airbox) and see what happens (just as an experiment!) off road, of course! (probably just makes it louder)

mmm, might try taking it off just to see if it makes a difference. will probably have a placebo effect as its cold in the mornings... i wonder if it would be beneficial to attach some tubing so its pointed towards the lower grill

i hope i can take it off without removing the grill!

Hello again, you could always do some timed runs 0-60 30-70 / in gear to eliminate the "placibo effect"

i remember reading somewhere that F1 cars with their big air scoops , only gained a 3% supercharge at top speed, (about 180mph at the time) so there is not much advantage in fitting a forward- facing air scoop on your car (probably just catch flies) as long as the intake draws cool air - may also be worth looking at the rest of the intake while you are at it - on some of the other Ford models the airbox itself has ribs/ webs that can be removed/ smoothed out

You could always do a "how to" etc if you get good results!

this was something I have thought of in the past but never tried removing it. Not sure about your diesel model but my 1.6 petrol has a really weird pipe between the air box and the throttle/accelerator. its a rubber pipe but has lots of ribs and looks like it restricts the airflow and was thinking of changing it for a smooth induction hose like so

http://www.pumaspeed.co.uk/product-Fiesta-Mk7-Zetec-S-Induction-hose_490.jsp

maybe something like this would also benefit your car, as well as removing that pipe mentioned above.

I read somewhere that the 1.6 can gain about 10BHP by changing that hose I linked, performance air filter and having a cold air feed instead of the pipe you want to remove. I imagine there would be even more BHP gains for a turbocharged diesel

10bhp? sounds too good to be true!

will have a look over the weekend to see what i can do.

Yeah It was more likely 5/6 bhp or less but that's what they said :S

It surprises me how pumaspeed can add 20-25 bhp to the fiesta 1.6 Ti VCT without a remap. Just a new air box and performance exhaust. Not worth the £1000 they charge though

i would have thought they would need to adjust the fuelling etc to make sure the car ran fine due to the changes?

20-25 bhp from just exhaust/filter changes in unreal. £1000 is expensive for that, go custom exhaust and replacement filter for less than half that.

i wonder if this would apply to our cars?

the 1.6 petrol already has a cold air feed hence why the airbox is supplied with air from the lower grill up through a channel

puma speed dont tell the whole truth the airbox makes 3bhp extra no more than a k and n panel filter on a standard airbox the rest is done by adding a sports cat new header pipework and a big bore exhaust thats where the expensive cost comes in removing the cat for a free flow makes 15-18bhp add that to the 3 from the filter and you have 18-23bhp

the car makes little by changing that hose and theres aonly ones for the fiesta which is a different induction setup so that pipe wont fit and none are available for the focus

as for the tubing the holes on top are designed toprevent water ingress by blowing it up through the duct the u bend shape creates a swirl effect on the air maximising the flow just remember guys ford spent millions developing these intakes for a reason if you want you can take the front part of the pipework off and buy an adaptor from demontweeks to put round ducting on an oval hole and have it to the grill in the rain youll get a damp airfilter so it will suck the performance

the 1.6 petrol already has a cold air feed hence why the airbox is supplied with air from the lower grill up through a channel

puma speed dont tell the whole truth the airbox makes 3bhp extra no more than a k and n panel filter on a standard airbox the rest is done by adding a sports cat new header pipework and a big bore exhaust thats where the expensive cost comes in removing the cat for a free flow makes 15-18bhp add that to the 3 from the filter and you have 18-23bhp

the car makes little by changing that hose and theres aonly ones for the fiesta which is a different induction setup so that pipe wont fit and none are available for the focus

as for the tubing the holes on top are designed toprevent water ingress by blowing it up through the duct the u bend shape creates a swirl effect on the air maximising the flow just remember guys ford spent millions developing these intakes for a reason if you want you can take the front part of the pipework off and buy an adaptor from demontweeks to put round ducting on an oval hole and have it to the grill in the rain youll get a damp airfilter so it will suck the performance

I agree about Ford developing the intake/ exhaust systems etc but pumaspeed managed to get another 23Hp Hp and its probably as reliable and economical as the stock systems

The OP had a turbo-diesel, and not the petrol, so it will probably respond differently to changs / modifications, for example, a cat is not required for the MOT, and the turbo changes the characteristericts of the inlet never mind that its a completely different engine

the stock filter is a paper filter and probably best to leep it dry - a K&N or Piper X would filter rain/ moisture getting into the inlet

But If you are not a tuner or engineer etc and /or know what you are doing probably best to leave well alone