I hate to be such a flip flopper but I'm sticking with my original design and making the intake manifold go back into the cowl. After sizing everything up I found out I can't make a front mounted TB because of hood and strut brace clearence. There isnt enough room to turn the TB down and back towards the passenger side battery area and, I cant fit a large enough tube to go in the original location.
After much thought about going back into the cowl I realized the advantages outweighed the disadvantages. Hear me out.
1. The entire intake system will only consist of 2 90 degree bends BEFORE the TB and will only be about 2' in length.
2. The entire system will be outside of the hood meaning lower temps.
3. The filter will be placed on top of a sealed box in front of the windshield (high pressure area) and will take air directly from outside of the engine compartment.
4. It will look much cleaner because everything will be under the cowl and dash so no hose clamps, tubes, hoses, couplers, MAF can be seen, only a 5'' stright peice of aluminum tube.
6. and if you really want to get crazy, better weight distribution.
The disadventeges would be:
1. Cutting 3 holes in the cowl. However, 2 of them will be welded up to the steel intake tubing so hardly any ridgidity lost there.
2. I have to extend the MAF wiring into the cabin and extend the TB wires a couples inches.
That's all I can think of. I just wanted to run it by everyone just in case i'm not seeing something.