[Mach 1]

I dont think I was ever confused...but anyway...cold coolant is not going to help cold air get warm when the engine is cold, along with the coolant. By the time the coolant is warm, so is the engine. The engine gets warm before the coolant.

And why would ford want to heat the incoming air? Is that why they put the air filter in the fender, away from heat, just so they could heat it up anyway with hot coolant and lose performance. I could see heating the cold air at cold start up only to facilitate engine warm up for emissions and gas mileage concerns, but the system doesnt work that way. It constantly routes hot coolant through the passage after the car is warmed up.

The coolant is there to cool the EGR gas only. If you have EGR leave it, if you have internally blocked off the EGR passages and there is no hot gases going to that area of your intake, then cap off the coolant lines to the EGR spacer.

Pretty straightforward if you ask me.