gs850 switching to pods

[Konnick]

the perfect mix requires the bike, and I don't think he wants to ship that too.

You could just bring your tools over. We have a couple of spare rooms. The Director can't cook to save her life but she does have one specialty ... Pizza Hut.

[nejeff]

Pod restrictors

A few weeks ago I was fueling up next to an old honda with pods on with an interesting twist! They guy had rubber restrictors on each on each pod ( he said he made them out of bicycle tubes) and he had maybe only 1 to 1/2 inches of exposed filter on each pod ( i did not pull a tape on it ). He said it was the cheapest and fastest way for him to get the bike up and running. Bike didn't look so good but started right up and he seemed to have it well dialed in. He was running stock exhaust and no carbs mods. He said he had it running right in about an hour by moving the restrictor tubes 1/2" at a time. I had never heard of such a thing and have no experience with pods (and yes, I'll be keeping my stock airboxes) but seemed to be a reasonably sound idea. Anyone do that on their GS?

[49er]

A few weeks ago I was fueling up next to an old honda with pods on with an interesting twist! They guy had rubber restrictors on each on each pod ( he said he made them out of bicycle tubes) and he had maybe only 1 to 1/2 inches of exposed filter on each pod ( i did not pull a tape on it ). He said it was the cheapest and fastest way for him to get the bike up and running. Bike didn't look so good but started right up and he seemed to have it well dialed in. He was running stock exhaust and no carbs mods. He said he had it running right in about an hour by moving the restrictor tubes 1/2" at a time. I had never heard of such a thing and have no experience with pods (and yes, I'll be keeping my stock airboxes) but seemed to be a reasonably sound idea. Anyone do that on their GS?

That's cheating, but a very practical solution for ease of tuning.

The problem with pods is they are designed for racing applications. For street use, they let way too much air into the engine at lower and mid range rpm. You can rejet to compensate, but you're always patching up for a reduction in the ideal air/fuel ratio. Your mission is less daunting when using manual slide carbs though.

IMO, the ideal GS 850 road scenario is to use the stock airbox and modify it so that the filter is less restrictive (using low density foam) and then adding a means of of increasing air flow only when the engine needs it in the upper rpm (banging in extra holes or removing the snorkel is detrimental).

I did just that by fitted a set of reed valves to the bottom of my airbox with stiff reeds, so that they won't open until the air pressure has risen significantly, during the demands of higher rpm. The restriction and control of airflow through the airbox is required for good torque, right through the rev range. I needed to cover part of the inlet to the reed block to achieve the best results on my 850. But, what a difference to torque and HP once I got the airflow right!