what would happen if dust got into the combustion chamber?

here's the situation...

i opened up my air filter assembly to check out the cleanliness of my k&n. upon investigation i found it to be quite clean since its installation.
i also noticed that there were two ducts that led to the air filter for intake.
i traced them both and found one led to the inside of the front left fender... cold air!
the other one led to a dead end?? on top of the radiator! a dead end!
now, i'm pretty stupid and as you all know by now i'm not exactly car dr. number 1, but i do know how a basic engine works.
after seeing the opening for the first duct i saw it to be small.
so i decided that the engineers who designed my car were dumber than me and disconnected the second duct... thereby leaving 2 ducts to flow air into my k&n. sounds like a plan!
when i reinstalled the filter and started putting the 4 screws in, i dropped one and couldnt find it. so i just tightened the other 3 and let it be.
next it was time to try her out. so i started the car and it idled fine. revd, and it revd fine. I invited my wife to take it out for a test run to see if there were any adverse effects to my surgery.
we drove around suburbia for about 30mins to an hour before the car just up and died. couldnt start it. towed it back to the house for 70 dollars.

thoughts? feel free to tell me how stupid i am, as long as there is at least one constructive statement. thx!

 

well the "leak" would only be as large as the crack.

(top down view of stock filter)
1 ___ 2
| |
| |
3 |__| 4

and only screw number 1 is missing, while all other 4 are tightened. so really the crack would be very small.

any comments as to my procedure to "add" the second intake port?

 

I like the way you operate. Work on the car and let the wife take it for a test run, nice. But seriously, it doesn't sound like a little crack would couse your engine to stop.

Does it turn over and at least start a bit? The reason I ask is that something similar happend to me a while back. I was messing with the intake and inadvertantly managed to crack the rubber pipe that connects the air meter to the throttle body. This caused the car to stall unless I kept my foot on the gas. Look for cracks in the "accordion" part of the intake or any disconnected hoses after the airflow meter.

Hope this helps

 

hi there.

do not at all be concerned about that 1 missing screw. Although Im not proud of it, i actually had a sock as an intake filter while i was in some heavy debt. (you guys should hear the thing suck wind!) The one screw is your last concern. Im guessing that when you took out the intake and found all that cold air extension and other chamber, you accidentally damaged the intake tube or the idle tube. Ive fixed mine and many others by simply using ductape to seal things up. As gro mentioned above, dont worry about the dust. That tube that runs over your rad is called a resonation chamber. It is designed to reduce the amount of noise your intake makes. It robs performance. On my air filter box i took out the cold air extension as well as all of the resonation chambers (minus the black box behind the vaf) I cut the bottem of the box so that the filter will stay in place and is totally exposed(gives a really nice sound). You could also remove the entire air box assembly and put a cone filter on with an adaption plate, but i would not bother, ive compared it to my cut-up stock box and there is no difference in performance or sound. ( i even took the cone off and tried to return it, now it just sits in the garage).
You will notice a difference in power and sound if you remove the bottem of your box. Your low end will suffer slightly, however your top end will have a nicely added punch. Combine this with an rx-7 vaf and you will have a nice and cheap intake that you can say you made yourself

 

i was in the car with her. i was driving :-P.

anyway thanks for all the info guys. i've come to realize my tinkering had nothing to do with the problem.

and when i try to start the car, it does crank. the only thing is that it doesnt actually start up. i'm thinking maybe fuel injection is fuxored? i remember when the car died, all of the sudden it just died as if fuel stopped flowing into the chambers.

 

so i had AAA tow the car to my local mazda dealer which they did at no charge, and had the mechanics take a look at it.

after running tests they came to conclude that the VAF was fux0r3d. Maybe opening up that second duct somehow "overloaded" the VAF? is that possible?
maybe too much air was trying to get into the motor??
any thoughts guys?

 

i know exactly what happend. The clip on the vaf was loose. Guaranteed. So many cars go into dealerships thinking the engine is screwed, hell it has even tricked me a couple of times before i realize to make sure it was in all the way. Before you pay anything, make sure the clip is in and that everything is on right. If its still screwed, pick up a vaf from a jyard or grab an rx-7 vaf for cheap and get some extra hp. The dealership will probobly want alot of $ for one.

 

dam u! i've already paid $480 to have them fix my car! fux0r5 y couldnt you give me this idea sooner??

 

hmm, and why is it in my car, a leak in my intake will result in being able to start the engine, and shortly dieing thereafter? or while it's been running, a 7/8th's inch round hole causes my engine to idle at 400-500 rpms until it completely dies? thats strange, anywho, i had my VAF replaced dude, after finding out the dealership wanted $70 to run it on a computer, then tell me WHAT to replace at THEIR cost for labor/parts, i took it to my buddy and he ran it in his shop, computer turned up a code for faulty VAF. i searched a couple junkyards, and instead of chancing the possibility of picking up a bad one, i bought a brand new aftermarket VAF(thats how his E-Cat listed the part), threw it in for free and spent $120 bucks on the damn thing. most likely, something got boogered up, and unless you live in hicksville, usa... find a ****** shop for christ sake dude... somebody respectable and somebody you can trust. the dealership is NOT the place to be taking a car to if you no longer have any warranty... they're prices are at least 6 to 15 dollars more an hour for labor than your area shops, they won't look at a car for free to tell you whats wrong... so whether or not they find anything, may end up chargin you for the ****. everything, whether changing brakes is going to take the guy 10 minutes or a full hour, they're going to charge you a standard rate, no matter how well the job is done. not to mention, you drop your car off for something either than routine maintenance, it's going to be there a LONG while. i kissed my car goodbye for 3 weeks for the ******* to sit and tell me my fuel pump was bad... something i could have done myself or with my buddy for under 200 respectively... and hence, i've learned my lesson, my car will NEVER go to the dealership ever again.. unless it's going to be sold, then thats another thing. find a respectable, honest mechanic that won't charge you up the ***... cause the dealership isn't the place to find them.
peace
edit: and a flip perspective of why my friend will never work at a dealership again.. too much stress, people not wanting to pay the dealership's costs and prices to correct problems the first time, only to bring them back again and again. although this is a perspective, i've heard quite the same from an automechanic who's had his own shop for the past 20 years... so take it with a grain of salt if you wish

 

cripes! well thanks for the feedback guys. I think i've learned my lesson too. My reasoning to bring my car to a dealership from fear of being ripped off by an autoshop has been destroyed by the dealership ripping me off!. bleh.

thx again guys

 

Just an aside, and late in the post too...
Sometimes making friends with the dealership mechanics can get you more knowledge about the vehicle and get you a friend who knows what the heck he is doing when he works on your car for free on the weekends....not to say that dealerships are the best place to take an old car, but Techs that WORK in the dealerships are usually a wealth of knowledge for those "mystifying" problems that usually have a really simple and easy to repair answer.

By the way...yes I work at a dealership...its just not a Mazda dealer....cant make any money there....work on FORDS....lol

 

maybe i was a bit slanderous before, and yes, a certified technician see's this ****, day in, day out. i guess what i'm trying to say, is that with the overhead, the stress levels mechanics get, and the prices, dealerships are the place to go when you want to get it right the first time, just expect to pay the extra bucks.
peace

 

Thank you sir! I appreciate that....but I do understand the level of rippoff at the dealer level on the older stuff....