I just picked up a used MY02 and it came with some type of cooling plate. I'm not sure of the make, it is carbon fibre with an integral cold air feed molded into it. It looks okay , some areas are fading from the engine heat I think. I've been restoring as much of the car as I can since getting it. Just curious if I should return to the stock air deflector system or keep the cooling plate ?. The stock setup looks like it is angled a bit smoother to direct air to the rad, but the cooling plate has the cold air feed to the intake box. The stock parts are missing and I'd have to buy new ones, I don't even know how many parts make up the stock air direction setup. Any opinions on this ?. I've read some posts by doing a search but no one really seemed to have any real information on the way the two setups compare performance wise. I really don't care about the cost of buying stock parts if the stock setup was a better system than the aftermarket cooling plate, so that is not a factor in the decision.

I know one thing, when I first picked up the car I drove home through a huge rainstorm for 2 hours on the highway, and when I got home I checked the air filter and there wasn't a drop of water in the entire air box, it was bone dry. Any replies would be appreciated, thanks.

 

i'd drop it and sell it. your latitude doesn't exactly require the plate to force air through the radiator (as say a hotter climate necessitates), so i'd leave the car without any plate and just let it all flow into the engine bay. then i'd remove the rear hood seal and that'd open up the air flow for the engine bay.

 

I would leave it. no need to spend $ on parts you don't need unless you want it back stock.cure for fading---paint it the same color as the car. enjoy the car.

 

You got PM.

 

check if the plastic stock cooling plate that directs air into the radiator is still there under this one. if not, get one before you sell this

 

thanks for the replies. I've spent the last few weeks replacing parts on the car that were either missing or of poor aftermarket quality, so I thought I'd continue with the cooling plate next. I may end up going back to stock to give it a cleaner look. Thanks for the replies on this.