I took mine off and plugged it with a #9 1/2 rubber stopper I picked up at Lowes. Been that way for over a year now. It doesn't help or hurt the performance of the car, it just looks ugly as hell and blocks the view of the passenger side valve cover. It was originally put on to reduce the transient drive-by noise of the AUTOMATIC cars for EPA certification, but instead of just putting it on the automatic cars, it made it's way onto ALL the cars.