Does anyone know the purpose of the duct in front of the airbox on many of our Accords?
I noticed mine is missing and I'm kinda curious what I am missing out on.

Here is a picture of the duct I am talking about, right in front of the airbox,

I stole this picture from Micha777 I hope he doesnt mind .

 

Air intake horn - engine air is sucked in through there. The bell-mouth give a bit less restriction than a straight pipe (barely). From there, the air goes into a big box inside the fender, then into the airfilter box. The whole point of the big box is noise-reduction. Intake noise combined with exhaust noise is regulated.

That picture looks like a 6th-gen (98-02) 4-cyl. Earlier years had a different arrangement.

 

Mine is a 5th gen but I know it still has it because the manual mentions it. So what will happen if I go find one of these and slap it in? SLIGHTLY better performance/mileage? Is it even worth bothering?

 

For the picture shown, there's a part missing that connects to open end and diverts the air onto the battery. I always thought this was simply to cool the battery slightly. It's not hooked to air intake of the engine.

good luck

 

That intake horn feeds air down into the resonator chamber shown here. From the resonator chamber, the air goes into the bottom of the air-filter box. The smaller tube branching off & curving down from the intake horn is blocked off. That's a smaller resonating chamber. I used to have a 1998 & I tried removing it, and honestly I couldn't tell any difference.


I know what you mean about cooling the battery; I've had other cars with small air-ducts for battery cooling. But the 1998 Accord didn't have any connection from the intake horn to the battery.

 

Looks like a significant change from 94-95 air box arrangement. The 94 does not have these parts. Sorry for the bum steer.

good luck

 

Looks like 94 has it too, just a different shape. So I guess that extra thing (#7) draws air from around the battery?


(I probably should have posted the 95 picture but I was thinking 98 based on the photo)