It's intake air resonator. These Camry's have 3 resonators that I know of.

1. The big white one inside the front bumper's driver's side. This is often referred to as "milk jug". (if you take a look, it's attached to the air intake hose right above it)
2. The oddly shaped black box attached underneath the air intake hose that goes from filter box to throttle body (what you have pictured).
3. Small 3" bent piece of plastic tube that comes out of the same air hose as in 2, but goes off to the engine side.

The three of them together make your car intake quiet, vs. the sucking sound that "CAI"-wannabe kits make.

 

when i still had my 98 tacoma with the 3.4lt v-6 i removed the 2 silencers from the intake line and plugged the holes back up using a 1-1/2 pvc plugs. I also did what is called the deck plate mod to the front of the air box which allowed the air box to pull from behind the head light but it also made it sound like a beast as well but another plus was the low end torque went up. i don't know what kind of power numbers there was but that truck had no problems rolling smoke off the 31x10.50 mudders after the mod

 

x, i was just gonna ask what kind of power those things have to rob from the engine. you don't get something for nothing and if you're making the intake quiet, you also gotta be dragging it down some too. sounds like you answered my question. maybe i'll see if i can reroute one or two of them and see if it makes any difference. on my 94 v6 not sure how many i have, but i'm gonna check.
tony

 

id like to do it to my 1997 avalon but my wife keeps telling my no

i know that it should bump the power up a little just due to smoothing out the intake tube by using the plugs that fit the opening

another way to look at it is if you get tired of hearing it you can always put the original equipent back on just by removing the plugs

heres a link to what i used to do my truck old truck
http://www.yotatech.com/~corey/tech/dr_z_intake/dr_z2.htm

heres the exact way i modded mine
http://www.yotatech.com/~corey/tech/96runner_isr/96runner.htm

 

Sorry guys but any HP/TQ gain you "feel" from this mod is in your head. If you put it on a dyno before and after I'd bet the difference is ~1HP-2HP.

The sound will definitely be different so if you're doing it for that reason go right ahead. Just don't fool yourself into thinking your car will suddenly be more powerful.

 

The 1MZ cant gain power with an intake because the factory Cams are SHIT. You put an intake on the VVT variant and you gain power becuase of better cams with higher lift then VVT gets factored in. I've got proof of that.

 

If you haven't seen it, check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCi2yo4UqPI‎

 

Actually, you may get less power without the resonators. I know this is not in line with the concept that making an engine quiet will reduce power, but in this case, the resonators not only make the engine more quiet, but actually add a small amount of power. I am no expert in physics, but from what I have read, in a straight tube intake, the air goes straight in and can be pushed back the opposite way under certain cercumstances, which would impede performance or make noise. The resonator acts as a holding area for the air to be used later when the passageway will allow it. This creates more power and also quiets the engine. If someone out there knows about physics, perhaps they can clarify this, but this is what I understood when I researched resonators briefly a while back. I was taking the intake apart for something and was puzzled by what the resonator was, so I looked it up.

 

The silencer on an air intake is just a hemholtz resonator. In very simple terms, when air is drawn past the inlet it creates a sound frequency which is used to cancel out other sound frequencies created by the engine. This is why you notice a difference in sound when you eliminate it or you change to some sort of aftermarket CAI. You're not really getting much more air into the engine though.

In the Camry's application the air box isn't created for optimal performance so removing the resonator will probably not lead to any reduction in power, but it won't lead to any real gain either. If you want to see an example of a factory air intake geared for performance look at a 2003 - 2007 Infiniti G35. It's a very well designed setup.

 

On the gen 3's you might see a bit of gain (nothing you'll notice unless you run the car on a dyno). There was a LOT of engineering put into making the car quiet. Toyota wasn't building a sports car with the Camry's. They were shooting for a quiet, comfortable ride.

 

Im just letting you guys know my experiance but that was in a truck with a different style airbox

i have watched that video before and i do understand the results they showed but i do also know that not all cars airboxes and intake and not created the same. just look at the old musle cars for the late 60s and early 70s, to make more power they started using hoods with ram air or cowl induction to get the colder air charge. If you can get the colder outside air directly into the airbox and get the intake tube smoothed out on these cars i bet you will see a noticable change.

 

lol did you watch the video I linked above? Also this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbGWgvJN1_8

Love the dual leaf blower setup