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Anon

I wish to cut a hole through the inner guard of a vehicle to add an external cold air intake track.

The hole diameter will be about 150mm, does this need to be Low Volume Certified?

It is nowhere near any suspension or bumper mounts etc.

Mat

From the "Ask Jack" archives - 23 December 2009

jbiddle

You need to be very careful when carrying out such modifications to ensure you are not affecting the body structure.

Anything within 150mm of a mount, hinge or any part of the main body structure is not permitted.

Certain parts of the vehicle are considered structural if they form part of the frontal impact crumple zone, so before cutting into the car, you should show the proposed modification to an LVV certifier to be sure you are within the regulations.

Make sure also you are not going to be dragging a lot of contaminated air into the intake system. If you don't have a good filtration system fitted, contaminated air can cause havoc with airflow sensors resulting in a very lean air / fuel mixture. In a worse case scenario, extensive engine damage can result.