Drilled Air Box ?

A friend of mine had a nice Ducati (got a big BMW now) and he mentioned that on his Ducati he drilled holes in the airbox & fitted a K&N filter.

The theory is that the increased inlet air flow helped (together with a free flowing exhaust) but his main point was the nice noise it made as the air was sucked in.

Is any of this known or done by us Org'ers ?

Cheers
G

loads of diff bike forum's mention the same..alot of the tl lads did this too,(i never did)..my advice leave well alone, cos it will need setting up to run right imho

if you look at the JHS site they do a conversion kit that does away with the top of the air box and the filter element is then secured with just a band that holds the element down, I achieved the same on my SV by cutting the top of the air box, only thing is mine is a pointy so not sure if it will work on a curvy or not, this along with the filter and power commander (dynojet kit on a curvy) seems to make a big improvement and the noise is good too,

[Spanner Man]

Good afternoon all.

Who knows more about your motorcycles induction system, Suzuki, or Black & Decker?

Quite a few people indulge in the B&D school of airbox tuning, & apart from the noise, it does nothing for performance, & in some cases it ends up ruining the engine due to lean running. Leave well alone methinks!


Cheers.

Originally Posted by Spanner Man

Good afternoon all.
Who knows more about your motorcycles induction system, Suzuki, or Black & Decker?

Quite a few people indulge in the B&D school of airbox tuning, & apart from the noise, it does nothing for performance, & in some cases it ends up ruining the engine due to lean running. Leave well alone methinks!
Cheers.

I see what you mean, but if you lived by that rule we would all have stock (quiet) cans

Sometimes manufacturers don't get all they can from a vehicle for many reasons (environmental, fuel economy etc etc).

Not rushing for a saw, but am interested...

Cheers
G

[Dave20046]

I've done this to a bike, it'll only work with carbs (I believe) however a couple of more knowledgeable members had a good laugh at me for doing it!
My idea was to accompany the straight through exhaust (more going out) and bigger jets (more petrol coming in) I'd need more air.

[fastdruid]

Well, if done correctly it *might* work, problem is that an airbox done properly *gains* power, you just need to fill it quickly enough.

If you look at for example the NC30 race bikes they drill the carb mounting plate and run without an airbox.

It would be very easy to c*ck things up and make things worse than stock or get a very small increase at one point in curve at the expense of a big drop elsewhere.

If you have a spare airbox and access to a dyno I'd give it a play, otherwise just get a performance filter (eg BMC or similar).

Druid

I'm not sure of this. Isnt an airbox supposed to maintain some pressure, in order to aid "force feeding" the engine? Or is this only on "ram-air" type systems?

adding lots of holes could just aid turbulant air flow, potentially decreasing power

Be intersting to see a scientific study. Peronslly, I imagine you'll just hear a whole load more noise

Duno about the Curvey, but on the pointy I swapped the 'Snorkel' air intake with that from an SV1000.

See the size difference..


That way you dont have to make holes all over the airfilter box and it can be returned to standard in 5min.

[fastdruid]

Originally Posted by Alpinestarhero

I'm not sure of this. Isnt an airbox supposed to maintain some pressure, in order to aid "force feeding" the engine? Or is this only on "ram-air" type systems?

No, the idea is to
a) Have a reservoir of calm fresh air
b) Take advantage of resonant effects to gain power.

In the case of ram air systems then it also runs at positive pressure at high speeds but the idea remains the same.

adding lots of holes could just aid turbulant air flow?

Not always a bad thing. Adding turbulence at the right point increases power.

Airflow is odd though, sometimes less is more.

Druid