well, my factory air box and cold air don't seem to hurt fuel economy too much
 

but i still want to pull warm air. I figure if i use cold air the car says "hey, more air volume/density, more gas" but if i use warm air it might be something like "hey warm air, i can use less gas because the flame speed goes up and there is a little less air density"?????? maybe, i hope.....:confused:

On the flip side your car might say "hey, warmer air, higher chance of detonation, better retard timing" much to the detriment of mpg. In that case you would have to tweak your IAT sensor so the car doesn't know it's getting warmer air.

so maybe i could install a pot of the same resistance as the
 

iat on the dash and tweak it until it pings on a steep hill and then back off?
but if it thought it was getting cold air wouldnt it give more gas?

If your car has a knock sensor then you might not hear any pings unless you disable it while testing. I would be somewhat conservative on this because if your computer hears too much grief from your knock sensor it might learn to keep the timing more retarded, defeating the tweak
Another thought: you might want to disconnect your knock sensor first before doing anything to see if there is any pinging in stock form.

so the knock sensor tweaks timing all the time? or just if it knocks? nt
 

.

Just if it knocks

so unhook it and drive it to see if it knocks to begin with.
 

and then if no knock tweak a little? will the computer delay timing if it is disconnected?