Those plastic pieces may not be adding to noise reduction so to speak however, by design, they may be deflecting the noise away from the cabin of the car.

Without dyno #'s I agree

 

Stop being internet chair performance analysts. Go pop off that front piece above the air intake and go drive it around your block. It’s a friggen 2 second mod lol. First thing I will hear from you is “oh ****, I can’t believe how restricting to the air intake that thing is.”

I can see that some people need pictures, Ill take a few when I get home so one can see how restricted the intake is with that front plastic peice on.

 

i took the remaining 3 off last night....and i can say for sure i noticed a difference in performance....

as far as the sound goes ill agree rs/ss that the sound may have been deflected from the cabin thus making it sound louder from the cabin....

y2ks2k ...did u notice any mpg differences......before i used to get roughly 35.5ish when i took the exit for school...(always reseting when i started cruising..roughly same location)....today same strech of road i got 36.9....will try next few days to see if i get roughly the same number...

 

Wow, sorry guys but I highly doubt that removing those pieces of plastic do anything for anything. They not weigh enough to be a weight reduction, they could not dampen sound enough to noticeably affect engine noise, they do not isolate enough to cause the engine to run hotter and they do not block any air flow to feed the engine more air.

I am sure Lexus just put them there for looks and to scare some people off from doing anything to their car which aids in convincing them to return to the dealer and pay them to do whatever needs to be done.

 

its far easier to put on an engine cover instead of designing ways to make all the hoses, lines, wires, etc look nice under the engine which will drive up development costs

 

I havent driven it enough yet to judge MPG. I only have 8K miles on the car in 1.5 years and for that entire time I average 17 mpg. I had my Sti for 2 years and averaged 14 mgp in that beast. The worst mpg I ever got was on track days in my S2000. I could average 9mpg on a whole tank of gas.

 

lol... try adding a few stickers to your ride as well

 

You guys is crazy. I await a Lobux response to confirm that this is ridiculous.

 

"Powered by VTEC"

 

humm, im pretty sure this does help sound a bit. the main engine cover has so much foam under it, im sure it absorbs some sound. in terms of if its a huge diff, beats me. i tired it last night n i could hear the lower rpm's alot easier but im sure if u just want sound ur better off just getting a exhaust.

 

You must have been taking it pretty easy then ...

 

This thread is stOOpid...

Want some real performance? On your tires there are the rubber pin things that stick out from when the tire was made right, well get some nail clippers and clip those off, this mod is for aerodynamics not to mention less weight of the rotating mass. EASY 5hp per wheel.

 

Rofl!!!!!!!!!!

 

need more data to support the theory......

 

It's hard to believe removing the covers would make a SOTP difference. Not impossible, but pretty hard.

I can't test it today - it's raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock out there right now. But I'll give it a full skeptical try and report back - probably this weekend. Too bad my buddy Andi went back to Dallas - I'd run against my Supra with him to check real world results.

If there is a difference, I would expect it to be from removing the sound deadening from the top of the manifold. It seems to hold an alarming amount of heat right on top of the intake manifold.