I'm taking off my iacv for the first time to clean it and it looks like this

is this a sort of gasket? What's with the hole? dafuq am I looking at?

 

http://postimg.org/image/txldae05b/full/ is the URL. posting from my phone so I can't tell if the original post shows it

 

Yes, that's a gasket. A severely damaged gasket. The red stuff is build-up from having never been cleaned. You're gonna have a fun time cleaning that. Without old that thing is, it would be worth your while to see if any machine shops around you can give it a hydrosonic cleaning.

 

Is this paper gasket normal? should there be that hole in it? the TB still has the rubber gasket in it.

 

I watched some videos on cleaning these things and nobody has any paper gaskets, especially not ones that block the holes on it like this. Should I remove it and use only the rubber one?

 

You could be more clear by telling us what motor you're dealing with (it's still one of those required things, and has been for a while now), but the parts diagrams I'm looking at don't show any kind of filter element there. It's also entirely possible that I'm looking at the wrong diagrams, since we don't know what motor you're working with.

 

A stock D16y7. This paper gasket appears to be made out of cereal box as it has writing in spanish on some of it and parts of some graphics.

 

Looks like someone may have tried to block it off for some reason.

 

That's...different.

But yeah, there shouldn't be any kind of filter element there. If I had to wager a guess, I'd guess someone tried to block it off with a piece of cardboard, which is, well, flamingly stupid.

Remove that crap, get the IACV professionally cleaned if you can, and replace the gasket with a new OEM gasket.