So I have a 79 rx7 with a Weber side draft carb and a lake cities short runner intake manifold.

My question is this: would I benifit from fabing up some type of box to enclose the velocity stacks and running some form of piping outside de the engine bay and adding a cold air intake type filter on the end?

Right now I have one of those open element air filters on there and a metal heat shield between the exhaust manifold and the carb, but there's really only a few inches between the them. It just seems like poor design to have the hottest part of the engine so close to the air feeding my baby.

I guess I should mention it's a stock port 12a and an RB race header to a single 2.5" free flowing exhaust system (yes it makes fireballs and yes its too damn lound for my tastes, but this is not the final exhaust configuration).

Any input and/or pictures or scientific explanation would be very welcome.

Leks.