On the air intake on my 88 190e 2.6 there's a little flap that covers some of the intake as you can see in the pic I attached. It seems like this would block airflow and if I cut off the flap then more air would be able to come in. Does anybody have any comments about this idea?

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I've seen this on several models. I think if you close the hood, you will note that the air intake is behind the grille surround. Maybe this makes a "scooping" action so more air is drawn in from the opening in the grille? Just a guess. I think I'd leave it, unless You want to cut away part of the grille to give air a straight shot into the tube!!!
Gilly

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Is this a peice of rubber or plasic? If it is plastic and when you close the hood, you can not see it, i say just cut it and open the hole up a bit more. It can't hurt.

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George Carstens

Gillybenz is not guessing.He is right.That piece of plastic
is to scoop more air to the intake.I will leave it as it is.
But,Its up to you.

I cut mine off on my 300E, I would recommend it... but it won't yeild anything dramatic...

I don't think they would add this piece without a positive reason. Why add more material (cost and slight weight increase) if it were going to detract from the performance?
My guess would be the same as before, to aid airflow from the actual grille opening, maybe the air entering the tube would be more turbulent if it weren't there? Good one to ask an engineer.
Gilly

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one reason it might be there is to keep things from entering the air intake... I don't think mercedes thought a lot about airflow on their older cars, if you don't like the 300 or 190s example, look at 400 and 500es, they breath from behind the headlights, not too great if you want maximum airflow...

Bothers of The Benz,
I've modified my air intake taking the OE inlet snout and using the oblate end cut a matching hole in the air cleaner housing at approx. the 10 oclock position.
Now you have the round end out with the oblate attached. I use 4 inch aluminum drier hose over the round end attached with a worm gear hose clamp.
This al hose is routed to the spark plug side of the engine and down to intake fresh air.
I purchased a new intake housing keeping it in it's original position.
This modification and a K&N Filter Element works for me.
Happy Trails Beep Beep from The Spiderman in Houston!!!

Welcome back Spiderman! Its good to see you posting again!

on my 190e, i unscrewed, and took off the housing of the hose, so the air eliment is open, like on carb.ed chevys, its not gonna hurt anything, if anything its gonna help, the hose and lip it there for california regulation bull crap, try this, before you cut any thing, unscrew that one screw on the air box, andpop off the hose, *notice, your breather filter elenment is snugg tight(this is all that counts, that it is not loose in your air box) try this, im shure youll notice alittle power gain, and IT IS HARMLESS!!!

That flap might well be to keep it from injesting water if you were to drive through some "high water". It might keep it from hydro locking......

I heard of someone using the intake from the 300E on the 190E. I think I read about it on www.190revolution.net

that's the way to go if you want more airflow. the system is pretty good as it is, what with drawing relatively cool air from outside. on my 450 sel, the air intake pulls air from the engine fan as it exhausts heat from the radiator and AC condensor. in summer, you can almost not keep your hand in that airstream, it is so hot.

I plumbed a cool air set up in the 450, but the 190 would be hard to improve on. i cut the flap on the 190, but it didn't hurt or help that i could tell.

the 300 inlet and tube are bigger diameter, so that would be the way to go.

it's been discussed at length on 190 revolution as was said, and short of taking your receiver/dryer out and losing your AC, or routing through where a fog lamp was removed, or routing intake across passenger side of engine (not a great idea for all the heat you would induce by going over the hot exhaust), the present system is pretty good.

For 190E owners that want to update their "air intakes" the larger scoop and hose for the 260E is what's needed and some trimming to fit.

The scoop part is 103 094 03 11 and the hose to the filter housing is 103 094 15 82 and the parts are very cheap.