Yes you can do that but you will be creating a warm air intake...as opposed to the cold air intake through the airbox. First thing to do if you haven't already is to 'de-cone' the airbox. Removing the plastic cone will give a deeper sound on acceleration and possibly increase responsiveness at the expense of smoothness and theoretic loss of laminar flow through the MAF sensor.
You could make a CAI by making a shroud around the pod filter. Make a cardboard one first then get some aluminium sheet and away you go. I've seen it done on other cars and it works ok.
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