So i was messing around under the hood and i noticed a small metal pipe on the passenger side right next to the engine cover.. well it leads toa 90 degree elbow towards the front of the engine and on both sides be the elbow it's completely cracked all the way around.. iwas wondering what this pipe is and of itssafeto drive to work in the morning like that... ihave pictures but i can't figure out how to upload them to the site from my phone. I mainly just want to know what the pipe is. Any help would be appreciated. If anyone wants to see the pics i can email then to you.

 

It would help to post your car specifics (engine, transmission, year.) If you just noticed it now and the motor hasn't blown up, it is probably safe to drive to work. From your description it could be a breather hose, evap line, or SAI hose.

Host your pictures on photobucket, flickr, imgur, whatever, and post them up here.

 

its the SAI pipe. Its not a huge deal but it should be fixed

 

Girlfriend drives a Volvo, and when I post at matthewsvolvosite.com, before you can even post a new topic the forum software makes you post the year, model, engine. I don't know how hard that would be to code here, but it sure would be helpful.

 

On my cousins old B5.. when the crankcase breather hose or SAI pipe (the plastic part of course) broke.. we just used good old duct tape to hold it together.

Survived two winters.

 

Sorry about that... it's a 01 a4 1.8t .. ifound a pic on another site that shows the basic area it is but it doesn't show the pipe itself... It runs right along that bigger tube to the right.. thanksa lot for the comments and I'm sorry again for not giving the specifics... lol... Happy Halloween everyone lol

 

Idon't know if that link worked... here is the address if it didn't... http://www.bulletmotorsports.net/audi/airboxmod-1.jpg.

 

I have a similar-sounding mystery pipe on the passenger/right side of a 2.8 12V AFC engine (1996 A4). With the belly pan off, I see a plastic rectangular air duct, similar in composition to the main air inlet duct topside, hanging essentially straight down from the side of the engine. I don't believe the AFC has secondary air injection. Is this some sort of PCV system connection? Should it just hang, clip onto a slot in the belly pan, etc.???

 

It does not.

I think it's the duct for the air cooling of the alternator on that car. It should connect to a round plastic connection on the back of the alternator and screw into the bottom of the radiator carrier.

Do you need it? I'm no engineer, but my 96 had 271,000 miles and still had the original alternator so the guy who designed it knew something.