yes, it's just the way the air goes in, then over the top of the enging before entering the throttle body. i though that was aiding the cooling in some way.
No
you are cooling the air that enters the combustion chambers that gets mixed with fuel.
Cooler air in this mix = more power (roughly speaking)
However, the combustion process heats the engine block + other parts of the engine and this is in turn cooled by water.