Air Intake Tube Eat Through - Anyone else experience this?

I was doing some routine maintenance; changing the oil, cleaning my air filter, checking fluid levels and drive belts, when I noticed this...



It is the lower portion that drops down on the air intake tube. It appears that the air intake tube to throttle body clamp was loose enough for the tube to twist some and make contact with the belt tensioner pulley and ate away at the intake tube.  What is this drop down portion for anyway?  I believe that I read somewhere that it is for noise reduction.  It's a truck, it's supposed to be noisy.  I wrapped some duct tape around the hole several times for a temp fix while I decide if I want to lop off the drop down portion or get another air tube.

Has anyone else had this happen?

It's basically a resonance chamber.  Creates a pocket of still air to smooth out the air pressure pulses coming from the throttle body.

I have an older AEM on my Tahoe.  It uses a standoff that holds up the tube.  Long story short, it got removed and the tube was laying on the heat shield.  Eventually, the shield sawed a big gash in the tube.  I made up a standoff an dsealed the hole with metal HVAC tape (not duct tape).  Works fine now.

If I was you, I'd just duct tape it and make sure it's installed correctly so there's no contact, then start looking for an intake.  A decent one will sound good and might get you a little more air flow.  Or just replace it with another OEM one if you want.  The reall cheap option I suppose is to simply cut off the chamber and seal the pipe somehow.

Replace it with an Airraid MIT. Its probably cheaper than stock and will get you a few extra ponies according to Blackbear...