air box

[curtisj]

looking for help on finding out about drilling the air box out. what size holes should i drill and where do i drill them:redexp:

 

[mrboyle]

Hole size = the largest drill bit you have
Where = anywhere on the can you want to drill (there is no special pattern)

 

[RTStork]

On mine, the stock inlet was on the front of the airbox so I took my Dremel and cut a big square out of the front of the air box. I recommend only cutting/drilling on the side where the stock inlet was. This will keep the engine from pulling in the hot air out of the engine bay. The factory had a good idea of where to pull the cooler air, they just restricted the amount, for noise reasons.

 

[Stephen S]

Posted by GJarrett in his Explorer Registry post. TONS of great information in there.
Dead Link Removed

Originally posted by GJarrett
K&N Filter and Drilled Airbox:
(or, "Swiss Cheese and a 12 Gauge")
Around this time many of us were installing K&N air filters and drilling holes in our airboxes to improve airflow into our intakes. I was deluged with requests for exactly how to do it and where are some pictures. It made no difference that a simple search would yield a couple hundred hits to learn how to do it; I was still deluged with dozens of emails about it. No amount of assurance seemed to convince people that there was no "best" way or superior hole size or location, etc. I finally decided, tongue firmly in cheek, to provide a definitive answer and end once and for all those continual questions.Dead Link Removed

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=16092

The issue has been raised in subsequent months concerning whether the advantage to drilling the airbox is worth the trouble since the mod will suck hotter air into the intake via the engine bay and it would be better to ram cooler air in from the outside. My observation is that yes this mod seems to work better in winter with cooler months. During severe summer temps in the 100 degree range I seem to experience a little detonation that doesn't occur when it is cooler. However, it sounds really cool all the time (like a four barrel carb) so I don't care even if it is summertime, so there.Dead Link Removed