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Air Intake Removal How-To (2003 Astro)

31158 Views 28 Replies 9 Participants Last post by  unkajoesplace, 
C
The air intake I'm referring to holds your air filter, and has an intake by the air conditioner lines. Removal is simple and necessary for a number of procedures. To remove it, you'll need to do the following:

1: Loosen rear hose clamp and disconnect intake hose. For this you'll need a 1/4" drive rachet and 8mm or other appropriate size socket as your configuration may vary slightly. I couldn't fit a screwdriver here, even my short one...


2. Remove wires to sensors. These wires have clips that will need to be held open to be removed. Here are the wires I'm talking about:


3. The air intake is also attached to the fan housing in two places, and uses rubber fasteners attached to the fan housing by plastic. Your best bet to remove them is to work them through the air intake housing using a small screwdriver. The photos below will show the locations I'm talking about, but try to avoid what I did there...that's not what I was talking about with the screwdriver...



4. Then remove the air intake. It will take some maneuvering, so don't just yank it out...


5. This is what you're left with. As you can see, you have a little bit more access to some other stuff...


It goes back pretty much the same way it came out. General note, if you start your engine for any reason with it removed, you will get a check engine light as your sensors are not connected--it doesn't go away when all is back together. I did this after a belt change, and found that Advance Auto local to me will clear the error for free.
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H
Sorry for chiming in on an old sticky but I wanted to pass along some info.

Popping the airbox sides (which I did) or replacing the airbox with a cone filter is probably one of the worse things you can to do the astro.

Now before you flame me, here is why. You are putting the air intake up above the grill with no moving air and nothing but hot air in the engine compartment after the radiator. Compounding the issue, the ECM pulls timing from the motor based on intake air temps. IAT's

I can backup this up with my data from the HPTuners stuff I run in the van. Over 120F in the IAT's the motor starts pulling timing, the higher the IAT's the more it pulls. I'm down in SWFL and in the summer traffic, I get IAT's over 130F

I can post the data from the spark table if you like.

And if anyone has the 2003 airbox sides they want to sell, I'll buy them. I tossed my before buying the HPTuners software.
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cowboydan said:
hank, what are those numbers at the bottom of your post?
Click to expand...
Torque numbers off the trans sensor recorded from 1/4 mile runs using hp tuners. I don't have a dyno nearby so I have to go with what I've got.
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H
2003 AWD

The 97 octane may be a type-o. We have a station up the road that has 4 blends available on the pump. 89 - 96 or it may have been 98..

My 87 octane tune has a less aggressive spark timing table as I had a lot of ping to pull out when I switched fuels.

I want to clarify that I'm not knocking the airbox mod as it does make the engine breathe easier, however be aware that when it gets warm the ECM pulls a lot of timing..
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H
Correct, I run a spark table with less advance when I run regular octane level fuel. Next time I'm up the road in North Port, I'll snap a pic of the pumps at this station. They have more than 3 choices for regular fuel. I usually top off there when towing.

Not sure where you are at but I can pull IAT's in the 129 to 134 range when driving around town. Yes, on open roads they to pull down to nearer to ambient.

The whole point of my comment was that when you suck hot air and cross the IAT of 120, the ECM pulls timing. If you want me to, I will gladly post the config data from my stock, performance and towing tunes.

And yes I'm producing more power with the higher octane fuel as I can run a significantly higher advance in the factory spark tables.

Take a look at www.hptuners.com for what the package can do..
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Haha, 30 would be a dream in the Astro. Actually what I'm tuning it for is towing. I pull a 5000lb travel trailer frequently. Lots of Disney trips...

With the factory tune I get 8mpg and a max speed of about 62. With the high octane tune I run I get 10mpg and comfortably cruise at 65 with lots of reserve power. Once, accidentally, I looked down and was cruising at 73. Trans and motor run much cooler as well. A 170f t-stat and a huge cooler helped as well.

Yes, we are a little hotter down here..

I've done a lot besides spark timing. The HPTuners stuff is insane.

Here is the factory IAT timing pull table. You can see how aggressive the pull is. Using my tuning laptop to do this post, Old Win2k3 thing..

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lol, actually crunching the number for the type of camping we do it looks like its better to buy a hyundai hatchback and a class A motorhome...
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Yes would be diesel but a whole heap would change if I parked the Astro. It costs me 7.00 a day to drive to work. I borrowed a Yamaha Morphous 250 scooter from a friend and have been driving that lately. The hatchback would be a good split between the van and the scooter as it tends to rain down here right when I get off of work.

Airbox is the same in the photos at the beginning of the thread. The factory black plastic one.
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Correct, I want to get my hands on a resonator and the intake tube.
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If you still have your resonator and intake tube, I'll take em..
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Don't overtune... See www.hptuners.com

Fortunately at the time I had an extended powertrain warranty. Had it towed in and they didn't question a thing.
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