there was one or two guys that have tried but each of those located the filter under the hood in a hot area ... its a very tight engine bay, thats why so many of us bought the needswings intake ... yes it is just a tube but in order to duplicate the fit and finish of the tube it would require so many hours of R&D on the creators part that you may as well go work for it at your regular job and make 3x the money needed to get a equally well fitting system.

search in the gallery ... one of the guys that made his own has pictures. he use a 90 degree silicone elbow and a steel tube with a smaller bend in it ... around 45 degree maybe. it located a large cone filter behind the driver side headlight.

reconsider the needswings intake as it removes the restrictive 90 degree plastic elbow along with loads of bellows from inside of it giving you a nice machined flange to mount the MAF to.

as you said ... its just tubes ... but then again, the space shuttle is just metal and plastic arranged in a nice fashion. its time ... thats whats in the price.