Look under your hood and it's inside that big black rubber hose thing. Unhook it from the air filter box and it should look like a white honeycomb-shaped plastic/metal thing. Stick a screwdriver on 2 oppostie ends of it and grab one edge with needlenose pliers and yank the damn thing out.
haha i agree!!! i remember the CAI's for the 99+ said to reinstall the maf screen or it will result in the same loss of performance. its only there incase your filter falls off and it sucks something into it, then of course your engine is gonna get messed up! but you guys don't have to worry to much about that since your filter isn't directly in the fender well. i consider that "tampon" of a h/c trap a secondary precaution from the factory incase such a thing should happen.
I would hesitate to believe the gains from HC removal on a untuned car, I have seen that same gain, if not more from doing multiple runs. These cars always seem to start low with the peak pull being the 3rd run.
I yanked mine this weekend. Simple and easy to do. Didn't produce any noticeable differences, but hey at worst it dropped my curb weight by a half a pound.