I am cleaning my intake, MAF, throttle body and wondered if anyone has removed the box that just past the curve on the intake? It's on the firewall side and seems like it is there to reduce noise? No idea and seems useless.

 

Correct, it will attenuate resonate frequencies to give less intake noise and more airflow - noise is wasted energy, so if noise can be reduced at source (i.e. not just muffled) it means better airflow and more power. Certainly not useless.