TRD intake install

The intake came in today! Looks pretty nice and well made. I noticed that there were some plastic shavings inside the intake tube so I took a rag and cleaned all that out. Don't want to have melted plastic in the throttle body!

Prior to installation.

Took off the cover and then disconnected the hose in the front and the vacuum hose in the back. Took off some screws and disconnected the MAF (mass air flow) sensor. Also loosened the clamp to the throttle body. There are also two plastic clips that need to be taken off. For those just squeeze underneath and pull. After that it was just a matter of taking out that big intake.

Close up of the MAF sensor. Careful with this sensor because it has some sort of fragile thermistor which is protected by plastic but you can still break it from the sides.

Rubber bushing/screw that replaced the regular screw. This levels the box for the intake.

The box finally installed. The hardest part was to get the rubber seal (see first picture) around the hole in the wheel well. It kept falling off. After a frustrating 30-40 minutes, I decided to use a bonding agent - super glue! Worked like a charm. You have to take the two rubber bushings with the metal insert off the old intake and use them for the two holes in the top. You must take off the metal insert first, squish the rubber bushings in the holes and then insert the metal cylinders. Then it was jiggling it until all three screws fit. There is an adapter that is screwed into the right side for the filter and intake tube. NOTE: DO NOT FOLLOW THE TOYOTA INSTRUCTIONS. Put the adapter on PRIOR to installing the box. The screw towards the bottom was hard to get at since the A/C pipe was in the way.

The intake installed on both sides. I had to take the threaded post from the old intake. This is the post where the cover is screwed into. DO NOT tighten all the clamps yet. You have to put the cover on and center the post before you tighten everything. After that take the cover off and tighten them all. I also had to put the vacuum fitting which was very hard. NOTE: Do not use too much teflon tape or the fitting will not go all the way down.

You then use the longer tube with the kit to install the vacuum line to the fitting (left of intake tube). The MAF sensor is then installed with a gasket, nylon spacers, and longer screws. Once that's done plug in the sensor. The huge air filter fits in nicely. Just clamp it to the adapter.

Once the filter is in, then put the metal TRD cover on top of the box and use the six hex screws. The cover actually has a rubber seal that is the same size as the top of the cover. I guess this seals it off nicely from elements and water. The last piece was putting on the plastic engine cover. Not too bad of an install but there were some sections of the install that were extremely frustrating. I would have thought that the Toyota engineers would have done a better job. Most of the instructions were incorrect in terms of bolt sizing as well.

After all that, I had to take it out for a spin. At first startup it sounded like there was a hissing type noise but it was just the computer trying to figure the new intake. It didn't happen the second time I started it. This intake sounded louder and deeper and really nice under hard acceleration! Now I don't even miss the RSX. :)