CTjeeper16 wrote:
so basically, if I want more engine noise, pull it off, and find some tube to attach in its place?
The noise isnt coming from the engine itself, but rather sounds very similar to when you use the handheld hose attachment on a vacuum cleaner. From the cabin when you're driving a car with an intake system, you can hear a slight whirring of the air as its being sucked into the throttle body. At WOT the noise is minimal, but you can hear it during stop and go driving when the throttle body is opening and closing.
That box, called a Helmholtz resonator (or resonator box) is designed in such a way as to make the incoming air waves acoustically cancel its own noise out, similar to an OEM muffler designed to make the vehicle exhaust noise as quiet as possible. Removing the resonator allows greater velocity of intake air and the suction noise to be heard. One or two of the models of cold-air intakes designed for our KJs keeps this resonator in place and has a tube extending from it leading to a cone filter in that same area where the stock filter would be. Most other models of intakes eliminate the filter box and Helmholtz altogether and just use a cone filter and tube that feeds directly into the throttle body.