you guys are going to call me a retard, but when i took off the stock airbox to replace my fuel filter, it looked like the box grabs the air from outside the engine bay. all i saw is a tube going down the front drivers side fender from the box. would it hurt performance if i got a ram intake?

yes and no.
A the stock air box/ intake, is restrictive. its not going to add any hp with adding a cai or intake at that. It will help if you have other mods.

B. I also made the intake follow the same path as the stock.

C. I think if you were to get a short ram, that it would hurt the performance. Instead of sucking up colder air, your gunna get more hot, and its less dence, there for less explosion. therefor less power.

No, your not going to lose power. But you should get that filter as far over close to the fender and fuse panel. Wouldn't hurt to box it in with a piece of aluminum either. If you want, find some nice tubing at the local hardware store and make yourself a cold air intake, that would be your best bet. Search around this site for matterials used and locations on these things. Oh, and one more thing, if you do put a short ram on, take out the collecter box inside your fender. That will clear the way for some colder air to shoot up through those holes and to the filter.

keep in mind, you basicaly have a cai, just one thats restricted. putting on a short ram is going to be sucking up hot air. hot air=bad.

If your going to keep the stock box, at least take the collection chamber off. This thing does nothing but restric air. I'd at least go with a K&N, or some other kind of foam instead of paper filter. But I say just go for it, because you can buy a short ram and have almost the same money in it as a K&N filter. And if you box it in, or extend it to make it CAI, that would be great. I know Digndoug agrees with me, otherwise he wouldn't have a CAI himself.

so i should just take off the tubing going down the fender and put a K&N filter on for the best results for the money? this would just leave a hole in the side of the stock airbox, right? keep in mind my intake has to look completely stock because my dad let performance stuff slide with my brother and he's at 6 speeding tickets right now. he's just stupid and doesnt slow down. i said im not like him to my dad, but hes taking the safe route.

hmmmmm if you want this is what i have to say

don't listen to bulldog lol
putting a k&n inside your stock box isn't goin to do much
and removing the collector and all the fender piping is goin to hurt you
cause all that brings in kinda cold air
for the best "stock look" cai
this is what i'd do

remove all pipes in the fender and take out the stock airbox
you will see the hole in the side of stock airbox connect a pipe to that some how and run it down into the fender and up to the front of your car if you look at your front bumper there is a leftside lil scoop a longs skinny middle one and another lil right side scoop
you want to run the pip right up to the right hand lil scoop
this is where you will get the most cold air "ramming" into your air box
you want to either put a k&n in the stock air box or a cone one right at the bumper scoop

Have you ever looked at the collecter box? There's no ram air effect. If you just look at it, you'll see what I'm talking about. At least that was the way on mine, it's a 94 GT.

i never really looked at the collector box. so id have to take out the plastic piece where the oem fog lights would go?

what you need to do is take off the driverside fender

next unbolt all the black plastic intake junk

then remove the plastic insert on teh bumper where the fogs would go

finally run a pipe(2.5" is fine) from the foglight hole up to the stock air box hole