Last night I removed the inner fender plastic to see what I had to work with to get some cold air into the motor. The stock airbox has a ribbed inlet hose that runs through the passenger inner firewall through an approx 4-5" round hole. That tube ends just through that hole, so it's effectively sucking air from inside the fender, which is defnitely cooler than underhood, but not as cool as fresh air would be.

Unfortunately, there's not a lot of clear space to work with behind the inner fender, but it's doable. My original thoughts were as follows...

"tin" in the whole area under the fender to create a 'sealed' airbox (the plastic inner fender definitely does not seal anything) from the backside... and then do some cutting of the right side driving light insert (the black plastic thing) to become the inlet.

However, I'm thinking of a simpler/racier approach...

Rather than build another airbox under the fender, I was thinking of just peeling up the fender sheetmetal just above the headlight to create a "snorkel" that takes in air right there. Then build the airbox only in the upper fender area to dump into the stock inlet and underhood airbox. Something on the scale (though not the looks) of a NACA duct.

Lots of words... make sense?

I don't want to grossly disrupt the lines of the vehicle, but I'm willing to do something creative along these lines to get some performance gains. While a different class of vehicle, I did something similar with a "bump" on the front of the fender of my 1998 Mitsu Eclipse (back in 1998... I no longer own).

 

Picture something like this lined up on the horizontal just above the passenger headlight... the rear lines are no good, but conceptually, this is what I'm talking about above in my second idea.

 

Keep working at it!

 

seems like a cool idea. i can't say i'd go cutting into my HHR like that for something i don't know will work, but that's also because i'm young, not so skilled, and don't have the money to replace the fender if i decide it wasn't worth it and want it back how it was. but hey, brave on and forge ahead my friend, won't know if it's worth it until it's done. i'd love to see how it ends up looking and working! be sure to keep us updated.

oh, and i think your second idea would be much more efficient.

 

I was looking to make some thing myself and and you run out of space fast with the fender, thats why I am getting an IC made should be here soon, Turbo is going to chew the air up and make it hot any ways. But maybe I will finger some thing out for a good CAI.

 

What about a hood scoop or vents? Wouldn't that be easier than the wheel well? Or do you think it wouldn't be visibly pleasing?

 

Hood scoop is certainly a valid approach, and I was thinking it could be done up against a modified stock airbox like the cowl induction setups on the SS's of old. I like the oversize Teazer Design hood, but would have to hammer one out of steel as I'm not a fan of fiberglass-steel bonding (it's OK for surface mount, but I would have to jab my eyes out if it wasn't seamless to the hood, and my experiences with mating the two have not been very good ones).

I won't be cutting for a while... this is all just brainstorming right now. And I'm glad you brought up a 'normal' approach.