The thing circled here in the yellow:



Its that two part black rubber sheet opposite side of the a/c condenser. Is there any harm or benefit in taking out the top piece?

 

there has to be an answer to this

 

like here:


theres no black tray thing, you can see right into the radiator

 

Yep that air box has the bottom cut out and the air deflector is missing. It is a hack job attempt at the Free Ram Air mod.
It will work ok and will not cause any problems except for heat soaking the incoming air when you're sitting in traffic or the staging lanes. The IATs will soar up into the 130s to 140s and the computer will pull timing 'till you get moving and the fresh air coming up thru there drops the temps.

A smaller cutout with a cold air installed will be way better.

 

while you're rolling, I suppose you would get more cooling air to your radiator as well. However as Al said, I don't know if the heat-soak while not moving is an acceptable byproduct.

Wouldn't the removal also disrupt air flow into the induction and intake as well? I suppose it would be smoothed at the MAF sensor/screen.

Hard to say about the benefits/negatives without testing. I would say either way, it would be minimal.

 

Good points. How would you stop the heat soak? And you suggested a smaller cutout for cold air.. would that be some like the stock set up air deflector with more a space to direct the air in near the filter? I've played with multiple set ups and it's tough to tell the difference at which one is better.

 

I went with the Super Sucker Ram Air (also known as the Austin ram air). It brings cooler air into the bottom of the air box from under the front of the car.
You will need to by a new lower air box so that you can cut it out properly to fit the ram air/cold air chute into it.

It netted me a tenth and one mph on back to back runs at the track vs. the stock setup. But the biggest improvement was found when logging runs on a 90 degree day and I saw IATs no higher than ambient where logging on a simular day with the FRA I saw the 130+ IAT temps.