I bought a '92 240 wagon a little while ago.

I'm going through the usual post-purchase routines, cleaning the fuses, resoldering the fuel pump relay, and so on. I get to the air box. The guy removed the preheater hose. No big deal. Pretty typical stuff. So I take it out to see if maybe the valve actually works. I found that the thing was perforated with many, many holes. Thankfully the holes are on the right side of the filter, but man it's like swiss cheese! To top it off, the hole for the preheater is carefully plugged. Why drill a bunch of holes then plug the biggest auxiliary hole!?

I have a neighbor who must be about 19 who can often be seen "modding" VWs. Apparently he does this favor for friends. I lent him my Bosch fuel injection book but he told me it was the kinda stuff he didn't want to know. Okay that says a lot. I imagine he could get more out of thinking about how the system works on the whole, but hey let's leave it to the aspiration gods. I heard if you throw a frying pan under the hood it will hold your wheels to the ground better in winter when the car is front wheel drive. Everyone already knows that if you fasten a park bench to the rear of a front wheel drive car it will make your car go faster.

I used to be in the camp that removed preheaters regardless of the condition of the valve. However, I think defrosting the innards of the intake manifold is important. Since I returned the hose to my '89 740, it starts up in the winter in an instant. With 260,000 miles that's pretty nice. I'm thinking I will have to buy a new (or used) air box for this. Please tell me why I should or shouldn't.

-JSBB