Guys: Has anyone tried this? Is this asking for trouble or a waste of time? Got the following off the Scooby Site........ Resonator-Ectomy Resonator Box Removal...A cheap alternative to a cold air intake. The intake resonator chamber is located inside the passenger side fender-well. The resonator chamber is basically a muffler designed to reduce the intake noise. However, it also restricts intake airflow. Removing it will allow your turbo to “breathe” easier and should result in a slight performance gain. A side benefit is that you will be able to hear the turbo spool-up better as well as the stock bypass valve when it goes off. Note: The car will be noticeably noisier as you will hear the turbo spool up, the engine rev, and the bypass valve go off. If you are trying to keep the car “stock quiet”, we do not recommend doing this mod. First, remove the air intake duct [1]. It is in the front on the passenger side and is a black plastic duct that runs from the front of the engine bay into the passenger side fender-well. Use a 10mm socket wrench to remove the two bolts at the front of the air intake duct. Next, remove the air cleaner case [2]. Although the resonator chamber can be removed without taking out the air cleaner case, we find it was easier to do it with the air cleaner case out of the way and it only takes 5 minutes or so to remove it, so why not! Unclip the MAF sensor plug [3] and move to side Pop out hoses and throttle cable from supports and move to side Use a flat head screwdriver to loosen hose clamp closest to air cleaner case [2] Unclip clips on air cleaner case [4] Remove top of air cleaner case and air filter and put off to the side Using a 12mm socket wrench with extension, remove the two (2) bolts holding the bottom of the air cleaner case in place Remove the bottom of the air cleaner case from the car and place to the side In order to get access to the resonator chamber, you now need to jack up the front passenger side of the car and remove the front tire. Use jack stands to support the car while you are working! Remove the plastic covers inside the wheel well by popping out all of the various fasteners holding them in place. Be careful not to damage the fasteners as you pop them out. We suggest you organize the fasteners as you take them off so you know what clip goes where when you re-install the covers (maybe duct tape them to the cover near the hole). Now you can finally remove the resonator chamber! Use a 10mm crescent wrench to remove the two bolts holding the resonator chamber in place. One bolt is in the engine bay at the top of the resonator and the other is on the opposite side, underneath the resonator. Be sure to remove grommets when removing the bolts so that you may replace the resonator chamber in the future if you desire. Replace wheel well covers and the tire and lower car back to the floor. Replace the air cleaner case [2] by reversing the steps in 2 above. If you are replacing the air filter with the K&N panel filter, skip to Section 3 now, replace the filter and than come back when you are done. Replace the air intake duct [1]. You can seal the air cleaner case [2] to the fender well with some hardware store adhesive backed weather stripping. You can seal the air intake duct [1] to the fender well by wrapping the end in adhesive backed foam tape.
It depends on how careful you plan to be. There's on small bolt that's a PITA to remove deep inside of the well. Some people just tear the plastic and leave the bolt in place... or you can be careful and deal with 100000 turns of a small ratchet to get it out. Either way.... The removal is nice, you get to hear your turbo a lot more, but i think the actual gains are minimal perhaps even trivial. It sounds cool though.
i had no problems taking the bolt (or nut... i cant remember) out from inside the wheel well... the instructions i had said to take it out from inside the engne bay but i took it off from the other side instead... definitely made the bypass valve louder and could hear the turbo spool
Milo, are oyu talking about the one from the engine bay? near where the two pipes come in from the wheel well? That one wasn't a problem, but my car had another bolt as well deep inside of the well that I had to undo. We couldn't get to it from the engine bay for whatever reason... I'm wondering if the 02 and 04 have a slightly different box?
Merc... I just took mine off yesterday, i didnt find it to hard at all (once i got the "hard to reach" nut lose with a wrench i just took it off the rest of the way with my fingers)... as for the power i doubt it really did much, but i can definetly hear my turbo and bypass valve better.. it also growls a litte more (kind of like an intake but not near as intence. Good Luck -Clayton
Did this to a friend's WRX the day he bought it last week. It was pretty easy to take it out and it makes a nice little snarl at WOT.
i'd recommend going with the delete elbow, like this one that i have. http://www.jscspeed.com/wrx/intake/gpmoto_intakeelbow.htm
or make your own elbow out of the top of the silincer buy cutting off the milk jug on the bottom and covering the hole.
well, i didnt get the elbow... but i replaced the airduct under the hood to feed outside air into the fenderwell...
no need for taking out any screws or bolts. Just take a hacksaw and cut the silencer tank off the elbow. Leave the elbow open so it can pull froth the finder well and the snorkal.