Volvo 850 AIRBOX??? Remove plastic??

Hi all, at the front of my Volvo 850 SE there is a piece of plastic just infront of the air intake tube. The plastic is just behind the grill but not attached to the grill. It is just above the radiator and has a small 1cm hole in it. In recent posts I have heard this is where the SNOWGUARD fixes to with a small screw. Mine hasn't got a snow guard but that piece of plastic with the whole is covering my air intake stream. Can this be cut off with a tool? Would water get in at speed?:stormy: Will this increase air flow to the airbox? Any one with pics would be great...:thumbs_up: Thanks... Any help would be great. I will get a pic uploaded soon...

i trimmed it with a hacksaw and sanded the rough edges. have had no water issues.

Dremel is your friend..... Mine's been like that since about February, all sorts of weather at all sorts of ridiculous speeds :D with no issues at all.

Thanks 

Dremel is my friend:thumbs_up: Thanks for that, I will do it now. Did anyone feel any more torque and higher speeds. Maybe even lower speed torque as well? Thanks

tbh i doubt you would notice a difference from that alone. if u want a difference that will register on the butt dyno id go with a cold air intake. something like a BMC DIA (i got 1 of these) or if thats too expensive one of the halford/ripspeed copies will do just as good a job. heres the BMC fitted on my 2.5 10v. i trimmed the snow shield away and ran the BMC filters air feed around and into the standard "over the radiator" air feed. i felt a very good gain in pulling power compared to the standard airbox and noise wasnt much louder than the box apart from over 5000rpm's where the BMC is slightly more throaty.

hey what about the maf (air flow meter)????

i cut a hole in the air feed and fitted the MAF with the plastic grill and the original rubber grommet into the air feed. also u will need to use the stock rubber elbow off the throttle body for the port out the side of it.. i cut the hose from the airbox to the ICV and put it onto the port on the elbow. u cant see that in the pic because its under the cover on the throttle body. i was thinking the grill over the MAF might be to lean out the fuel mix slightly to save on MPG? was thinking of cutting the mesh out of it.

Interesting, the 10V engine does not have a MAF only an inlet temperature sensor.

I see... That's cool