OEM air duct benefit?
 

I have the K&N air intake, I was thinking if I remove the plastic at the very front of the engine bay it would allow more air to come up through the bottom hit the hood and be directed by the stock air duct to the intake more efficiently. Otherwise I cant see how the air is directed to the duct. What do you yall think?

All plastic parts are ment to direct air through the oil,Ac, and radiator cores. I would suggest running the filter in front of the tire area. Some models have the windshield wiper fluid resvoir up front. It can be relocated and the air filter can be relocated their. IF it is one of those K&N kits you may have a harder time doing this mod.

Maybe also trying building a box around the filter. Make sure it has a good air supply from up front. Also once the air circles around the engine it has already heated up. DID YOU NOTICE A DIFFRENCE WITH THE NEW FILTER?

If you are leaving the stock ducting (big airbox), leave the front duct. If you take it off, you will be getting hot air from the engine bay whereas you leave it you still get cooler air from the front of the car.

Unless you get a cone filter (which reading it again, looks like you have a kit), then I would suggest you remove all the OEM plastic, then try to locate the filter as close to the headlight (passenger side) as possible, then build an airbox to isolate it from the engine bay. Read the previous post on this. Also there are plenty of pictures of people doing this if you search for it.

I bought the car with the filter already on so cant compare to factory system. I do know after i used the KN recharge (cleaning) kit I gained more throttle response.

An open cone filter is robbing you of power. The stock airbox/duct on an NA is actually perfectly adequate & will only pull in cooler outside air. Build a box for the cone filter, or get a hold of a stock air box.