is it bad if i drove my car without a cold air intake? took out the box that used to fit in it, but my car got stolen and that is what was taken from it. so am I still able to drive without it?
You must get that fixed asap. If dirt gets in there, it will clog up the intake valves and throttle body causing signifigant damage and making your repair bills higher than they should be. Yes it will live just for a time, but the sooner you get it taken care of, the better.
you need to SCORE the faces that you are attaching before attaching them, it also helps to use slip, or a wet finger once you've attached them. To score the edges, just cut a bunch of shallow lines on the faces that you want to attach, in different directions, so they look all messed up, you can add a very small amount of water with you finger, but not too much so they don't get mushy. then press the scored faces together firmly. You can score it more on the edges and then smooth it down with tools, then a wet finger to make the join invisible.
Sure you'll be able to drive your car but you always need an air filter to filter out dirt and dust from getting into your engine. Once you get it in your engine it would be able to lubricate the joints effectively.
If it's fuel injected, then yes, it could be very bad. Not having an air filter means you could suck dirt or sand or rocks or insects or whatever into your engine. That is bad. If there are any leaks between air flow meter (MAF, vane air flow meter, whatever you have) and the intake manifold, the car MIGHT still run, but it will run like crap. The amount of air going into the engine determines how much fuel can go in. If anything happens to throw off those measurements (and not having an intake means it is basically unmeasured) you could end up with too much or too little fuel, which could damage your engine or your catalytic converter. This could vary from little-to-no-harm, to FAR worse than not having an air filter. Oh, and you'll be getting poor fuel economy, too. I wouldn't drive it any farther than a parts dealer. edit: You could rig up something temporary out of duct tape or something
