Do I Need This?

Hey, today I was messing around with my car to see how it would run like this

and it runs great, so I was thinking about just getting a universal air filter to stick on the throttle body or on the piece of intake duct or whatever it is. But in the stock air filter canister theres this plug

do I need this, the SES light did NOT come on when I was driving my car open like that. I was just wondering what this was for and if I need it or not.

[thursday12889]

Oh and also, It is about 3 1/2 inches from one outer edge to the other outer edge on this So should I get a 3" universal air filter or 3 1/2?

[Orange Terror]

Yeah, I'm guessing you do.

[thursday12889]

well it ran fine without any air flowing through there according to all the gauges, and idle was alot more steady that usual, any third gen guys know what this is?

[MattODoom]

Looks to be the IAT, Incoming Air Temp sensor.

[thursday12889]

from the name of it, it doesn't sound that important, is there a way i could make it so its in the tube off the TB, or should i just leave it plugged in right there and stick a filter on?

[WMCCjames]

It's the IAT as matt said.

[thursday12889]

ok but do i need it

[WMCCjames]

ok but do i need it

YES!!

[thursday12889]

damn that sucks, i'm gonna go see if i can relocate it then, thanks for the help guys

[GETGONE]

Technically you could leave it where it is and there shouldn't be a huge difference in temperature between your filter on the end of the intake and the stock location. Actually you might be hotter just sticking a filter on there since it's sucking air off the back of the radiator. There's a trick of putting a resistor in place of the sensor to fool the computer into thinking it's colder than it is but all that really does is dump more fuel and make your gas mileage go down.

[WMCCjames]

Technically you could leave it where it is and there shouldn't be a huge difference in temperature between your filter on the end of the intake and the stock location. Actually you might be hotter just sticking a filter on there since it's sucking air off the back of the radiator. There's a trick of putting a resistor in place of the sensor to fool the computer into thinking it's colder than it is but all that really does is dump more fuel and make your gas mileage go down.

Yeah, I never understood why people would do that resistor thing. Let's see....let's make a fat fuel curve fatter!!!!Yeah, that's it, it should go faster now

[WMCC Dino]

[shiftinda93z]

yeah, just put it somewhere close to where the air is picked up, should be fine in your app i'd geuss...