A question about aftermarket air filters/pods

[Guest]

Hey, my son and I picked up an '80 GS550e to turn into a cafe racer. He and I both agree that removing the stock air filter housing would go a long way to creating the clean and simple look of cafes. But, I have read and know from personal experience on other vehicles that when it comes to intakes, stock is usually best.

We order new O-rings and got all the stuff together to clean the carbs. I know that if we went with pods or an aftermarket 4 in 1 filter we'd have to rejet and since the carbs will be apart for cleaning, now would be a good time to do that. Admittedly though, I'm not that savvy when it comes to jetting but I'm willing to learn. We live at 4,500 ft above sea level.

Any help or thoughts will be gladly accepted, thank you, Alex.

[tkent02]

One thing about the stock airbox is that it helps the engine run OK at a much wider range of elevations without changing jetting. You have CV carbs, they compensate for elevation changes very well. With altered air intake, not so much.

[steve murdoch]

It is difficult to give jetting advice without also knowing what exhaust you will be using.
The sticky on pods has some great advice.

http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum/showthread.php?199275-Pods-Pipes-Panic!-(Help!-Your-Bike-has-Pods)

If you do go with pods i would use quality ones not the cheapest ones.

[roeme]

Hey, my son and I picked up an '80 GS550e to turn into a cafe racer. He and I both agree that removing the stock air filter housing would go a long way to creating the clean and simple look of cafes. But, I have read and know from personal experience on other vehicles that when it comes to intakes, stock is usually best.

Not sure about the background of the two of you, but I had similar motivations when I got my 550s - my first ones ever.
Almost 2 years down the line I humbly recommend first getting to know the bike, all it quirks and making sure it runs well in it's bone stock configuration.

One thing about the stock airbox is that it helps the engine run OK at a much wider range of elevations without changing jetting.

I don't quite understand why, though. Smooths out the vaccuum resistance?

[05Astro]

I'm not a big fan of pods.

[tkent02]

One thing about the stock airbox is that it helps the engine run OK at a much wider range of elevations without changing jetting. You have CV carbs, they compensate for elevation changes very well. With altered air intake, not so much.

I don't quite understand why, though. Smooths out the vaccuum resistance?

Not sure exactly, probably that's part of it, and when the Suzuki and Mikuni engineers spent all that time and effort sorting out carburetion all those years ago that's what they were using. It's probably what they chose to use because they knew that amount of intake restriction worked the best. Dunno, I'm not a Suzuki or Mikuni engineer, but I have tried to understand these carbs and get them running better here in Colorado, can't get anything to work as well as CV carbs with stock intakes.

For whatever reason, if you ride at a wide range of elevations the CVs with the stock airbox runs nearly perfectly from sea level to 14,000' where I ride, you lose a little power up high but it still runs and rides well. With pods there are differences as you climb or descend, gets leaner and richer at different times, runs a bit funny. They still work a lot better than non CV carbs but not as nicely as they do with the stock airbox.

[steve murdoch]

A couple thoughts from carb guru Mike Nixon on CV carbs and altitude.

http://www.motorcycleproject.com/text/carbs_altitude.html

[sharptailhunter]

Thanks for the replies. I think for now we'll leave the stock air box on and use either the stock air filter or a K&N for it. I say K&N because I'm not sure if the filter that came with it is stock... Maybe down the road we can see about putting pods and pipes on it. For now we'll get it running well as a baseline for future mods.

[Big T]

I don't quite understand why, though. Smooths out the vaccuum resistance?

Nope, the boots constrict the air flow, causing the air to move faster and create the proper amount of vacuum to lift the slide

[nastyjones]

Most people who change to pods also change the exhaust to a less restrictive one. I have done both on many of my bikes and have had few issues. A rule of thumb for this set up is usually 2 sizes up on the main jet and raise the needle a notch or two depending on how it runs. The pilot jet might also need to be changed.

Important advice concerning pods.....buy quality pods from folks like Ape, K&N or Dynoman. These pods use cotton fiber rather than paper to filter and should be sprayed with K&N filter spray. At the end of each season I just run them through my ultrasonic machine and they're good as new.

My bikes have a steady idle and pull cleanly all the way through the rev range.

Cheers,
Paul

[tkent02]

A couple thoughts from carb guru Mike Nixon on CV carbs and altitude.
http://www.motorcycleproject.com/tex..._altitude.html

He is exactly right. I'm switching everything over to CVs, as I live at 6,000 ft. and mostly ride higher than that, the wrong mixtures are annoying with non CV carbs, you have to feather the throttle up high, throttle response sucks, sometimes you don't have enough power to make it up a steep hill above about 12,000 ft or so. You also have to be careful with pinging down low, and I do have to re-jet them to ride at lower elevations, like anytime I go anywhere outside of Colorado. What I'm saying is the ones with CV carbs and pods don't work quite as nicely at all elevations as the ones with CV carbs and stock air boxes.