the turbulance created by the convulutions in the tubing I think would cause some power loss.
the stock air intake is in a pretty good position to get cold air

 

If you think so

 

Disconnecting the plugs is not the same as grounding. Grounding energizes the solenoids and ports oil to the vtcs. That will tell you for sure. It is a 90% chance of vtc tick.

 

There is also the chance that the terminals on the soleoids are corroded, the vtc will not turn on if the terminal is corroded.

I had a bad tensioner, luckily I caught it just before doing a vtc rebuild. the tensioner would only make the chain slap at idle, if I gave it a tiny bit of gas it would go away.

when you ground the vtc you don't disconect anything, your just splicing into a wire, then connecting the other end to ground. So, yes you can remove the added wire, and return things back to normal.

 

OK, what im getting from you is that it cannot be my tensiorers because , as i accelerate and give gas to my car , i still get the ticking noise, as you say your would stop. It is raining today and i worked friday/saturday/sunday so im gonna try and get o ut tomarrow and get them grounded , guess ill PM you if i have questions , thanks for all the help guys. wish me luck ;-/