[daemonside]

First of all, I'm new. Hi my name is Skye and I just bought my '89 corolla a few days ago. It's a four door with a 4A-F and well I'm confused. I've never owned a carbureted vehicle before so some of this is new to me. My last cars were a '98 malibu and an '88 volvo 240 so you can understand how different this is for me. The issue here is this giant frying pan of an air-cleaner is making my engine bay just look ugly and I'd like to put a nice clean short ram in it's place. My only issue is that there are all these hoses going to the cleaner assembly. I know I can just put a filter in the breather hole, but the other stuff I don't know if I need it filtered or not and what to do with it. Anything would help. Thanks

 

[Ghostyman]

The stock airbox is more efficient and draws cool air from behind the bumper. You will see performance losses if you change.

Before I type anymore, please confirm that you're more concerned about looks than function.

 

[daemonside]

I'm not all for the aesthetics. I just felt if I could kill two birds with one stone it would be nice. If the stock air cleaner is more efficient, say I routed some kind of cold air intake, what do I still do with all the hoses? On the topic of aesthetics vs. functionality though, would a fart-can even remotely improve the performance of my car, or would say a cherry bomb do much better? I hate to bring up topics that have already been discussed, but the possibility of glass-packs hasn't been discussed as far as I know...I know that back-pressure is important on suck small displacement engines, but i don't even remember what I'm rambling on about. I'm just going to stop now haha. I would appreciate any direction though. Especially involving that frying pan.

 

[Ghostyman]

Either muffler choice will be okay. Probably a little better than stock but I wouldn't expect to see much of a difference. By the time you get to the muffler, the rest of the exhaust is the main restriction and you will get the most performance out of the biggest, freest flowing muffler you can find.

You actually want as little back pressure as possible. It's a frequently misunderstood thing and I don't have the time to type out a good explanation. The short answer is that you want the highest velocity you can get and the lowest back pressure. That being said, I'm not very familiar with tuning carbs and a decrease in back pressure can result in the engine running lean and having problems if it isn't tuned properly.

Another thing I should mention is that trying to add power to a 4AF is a long, expensive, unrewarding road.

If you don't like the air filter cover, try painting it. I did that to mine and I think it looks quite a bit better in the engine bay:

 

[daemonside]

Thank you very much, I might invest in maybe one of those 4-2-1 headers and a glasspack, nice natural sound. Painting the air box never crossed my mind.I'll definitely get to it and thanks again!

 

[Ghostyman]

Glad to be of help. Good luck with it and let me know if you have any other questions.

 

[freakinbox]

I didn't notice any performance loss with taking off most of the stock air box system on my 4af, it's sucking air from beside the timing belt cover now.

 

[Ghostyman]

It probably won't be a noticeable difference. It's just one of those things that works marginally better when it's getting the colder, more dense, air.