Cones vs Stock Air Box

[Guest]

Convince me if I should upgrade to aftermarket intake cones and ditch the stock air box. I have a new filter in the airbox currently. What are the benefits of this upgrade and how do I alter the jets?

[Nessism]

Convince you? Not. Keep the airbox on and the money it will cost you to mod the bike in your pocket.

[spyug]

What Ed said. Don't waste your money and make yourself crazy. Going to pods requires rejetting and its not just dropping in new jets. There is a lot of trial and error to balance everything out and you won't always make much in performance gains for the headaches.

Stay with the stock airbox and enjoy the ride.

Cheers,
spyug

[blowerbike]

sense its a 550 i'll say leave it to heck alone.
want more power?
buy a larger CC bike.
cones???
i love ice cream cones

[Steve]

Yet another vote for keeping it stock.

.

[BassCliff]

Hi,

Too much $$$, too much effort, not enough return (as in bhp). Keep your jet kit and pod money. Buy a few tires instead.


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

[SVSooke]

Hi,

Too much $$$, too much effort, not enough return (as in bhp). Keep your jet kit and pod money. Buy a few tires instead.


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

Much more fun riding new tires to old ones than pulling carbs to rejet IMHO.

[AJ]

Wow, pretty universal negative opinion on the cone filters, and it's an opinion I share as well. One thing no one has mentioned is how much louder the bike will be with the individual cones. That airbox is a fairly complex system that not only manages airflow for good power, it also really quiets the intake noise. The intake side of the engine will produce a rather loud blatt with the cone filters. Some folks like the sound, but I do not.

Also, cone filters can also reduce power for some bikes, especially bikes with full fairings because the air pressure is lower in that location. The intake runners to the airbox are typically located to take advantage of high pressure air, measured with wind tunnel testing.

[BassCliff]

Hi,

Don't get me wrong. I'm not totally against pod filters. I like a few performance enhancing hardware modifications where they work well and produce good results. I just can't justify all the time and expense on a smaller bike to get only a couple more horsepower, more noise, lowered fuel economy, etc. There's no "bang for your buck" value.

Now if you just like to tinker, and you have the time and money, there's no harm in it. Sometimes, if the airbox is lost or destroyed, then you have to go with the pod filters and make them work. But if you've got a good airbox then I say keep it.


Thank you for your indulgence,

BassCliff

[barnbiketom]

Buy MORE SUZUKI GS models, bigger ones go better. save your money time and frustration .. keep it stock.

[hampshirehog]

If you're asking about how to change the jetting then cones aren't for you. You need patience, experience (learned through making an awful lot of mistakes) and a bit of luck to set up carbs without too much heartache. That or a few £0000s.

[Montanaman]

In my experience - at least on my KZ's I got the best power/driveability with the airbox in place.

I'll give you just one example -

On my '81 Gpz550, it had a rich burble at about 7000 rpm's at WOT from the factory, but ran strong.

So I installed the KERKER pipe, and pod filters, and the closest jetting I could come up with was the canadian jet needles in the middle clip, and #105 jets in place of the stock #94's.

I don't think it made any more power, but when the weather changed, the carburetion changed - on hot days around town, the inside two cylinders got more hot air than the outer cylinders, etc, and it didn't carburete cleanly.

I eneded up going back to the airbox, the #94 jets, and I left in the Canadian jet needles, but put a K&N stock replacement in the airbox, and riddled the airbox inlet with holes, and it ran perfect.

Every other bike I played with pod filters on left me unhappy too -

Just my .02 cents.

[Octain]

If you have the knowledge and skill to do the carb work then go for it.
But if you have to ask about "altering the jets" you should prolly leave well enough alone.

[MisterCinders]

Haters gonna hate, but that air box can go to Hell. Love my KN pods, but you'll need to rejet them.

Do you have VM or CV carbs? The Dynojets for CV carbs take a lot of guess work out of this.

[UncleBen]

The Dynojets for CV carbs take a lot of guess work out of this.

The Dynojet stage 3 kit will definitely make getting the bike started and idling easy, but he should be prepared for the possibility that he will have to do a lot of fine tuning on his own even after the DJ kit.

Since DJ doesn't address the pilot system at all in this kit, I ended up having to go two sizes up on the pilot on my own. Then they only offered one size lower for the main which is still a bit too rich and will again require me to buy more jets.

I think if DJ included a few more main jet sizes and addressed the pilot circuit it would be a much better kit. IMO, you are buying the DJ needles and some jets just to get you in the ball park.

I am all for pods and never even considered keeping the stock air box even though mine was perfect when I got the bike. However, anyone going pods needs to have a good working knowledge of carb tuning or be willing to learn!