Has anyone removed the plastic air deflector in the air intake elbow right as it enters the turbo on a 2005 truck? I have a Proguard 7 drop in filter with a homemade torque tube and was thinking about removing the plastic deflector. To me it is just another restriction in the intake but maybe I am assuming wrong. Any ideas if it will cause any problems if removed?

 

I removed the entire elbow...both of them in fact...as well as the canister looking thingy in the middle. See my gallery.

 

I still have the two factory rubber elbows and replaced the silencer canister with a piece of 5 1/2 " aluminum pipe. I don't think it would hurt anything to remove the deflector thingy but just wanted to check first.

 

They are directional vanes and are supposed to make up for the lost airflow caused by adding the silencer.

 

I went ahead and pulled the"vanes" out. I guess I will see how it runs tomorrow on the way into work. To me it was just one more thing to slow down the air flow.

 

The vaines are designed to deliver even air flow accross the intake of the forced air side of the turbo. This will help no matter what you have in front of it. When air is forced to turn a corner the outside radius will increase velosity and the inside radius will decrease in velosity. It the velosity of the air gets too high on the outside radius it can actually block some of the available air.