I was looking under the hood of the RDX yesterday when I came across the stock air intake system. I was rather bored, and decided to experiment with removing the upper tube to see if any difference could be achieved. In short, the only pipe remaining is the one sticking out of the air box.

The end result is kind of cool. The turbo can be heard spooling and the blow off valve is significantly louder. The funny thing is that the RDX definitely feels faster. I took a friend of mine who has been in the RDX many times before, and he agreed the vechicle appeared to have more mid range and top end.

It could all be in my head, though. Somebody go try this today. It's not a terrably diffacult process, but you'll want to take your time since working on a brand new vehicle

 

Cool!!
I will give it a shot when I get mine..

 

sounds similiar to the intake silencer removal mod that a lot of subaru legacy owners (including myself) did. same results, as well. but it didnt give you any performance improvements...

 

Upper tube? Anyone got a diagram of what was removed?

Dogpatch, yes the Snorkus removal is common but is that what he removed?


It is possible that the car feels faster b/c you have caused a lean condition by changing the flow of air into the intake and thus the MAF sensor is being confused. This is bad.

Then again, it might just be a resonator tube to muffle the sound.

 

The long intake pipe is removed, which connects to another short straight pipe which THEN connects to the airbox.

I doubt it would cause it to lean out.

I actually replaced it back to stock. Found my gas mileage got even worse! Probably because I was always revving it to redline to hear the nice sound

 

Long intake pipe? I need to see the car lol. I dont really have any experience w/ what the engine bay of an RDX looks like. Just becarful with intakes on turbo cars w/ MAF's that are located near the intake. A change in the bend of the piping can effect the MAF readings.