Has anyone run larger intake tracts horizontally back to the air box?

[bedford4x4]

My apologies if this has been discussed before.

From what everyone says, the intake tracts on the TLS are a real choke point in the system and even running with no filter makes no difference to air pressure inside the airbox. It seems the intake tract just can't pressurise the inbox enough. So I wondered if anyone had attempted to get around the problem by doing the following:

Has someone ever made up larger intake tracts that instead of running below the chassis spars/rails, through the tunnel and up into the air cleaner like on the standard airbox, they ran straight back between the chassis spars/rails and into each side of it? It would require blocking off the bottom of the airbox and the use of individual air filters on the throttle bodies.

It seems to me that it would have been a more efficient way of getting pressurised air into the airbox a la Kawasaki's ram air system (which has been proven to work very well) , and the space to do it seems to be there.

Thanks for your input,

Harry

[cyclecamper]

Re: Has anyone run larger intake tracts horizontally back to the air box?

Just don't put individual air filters on the throttle bodies. You want the filter farther upstream and you want all the filter area to satisfy the pulse demand of either cylinder. You can put larger pods on each ram runner inside teh aribox though. But if you put pods on the TBs they have to be huge oval ones. Lesson learned from Ducatis.

I don't know waht Sam is talking about when he says TLS airbox mods don't make a difference...but to get benefit you have to make extensive mods. If your ram runners come in down low at the sotck location you need to radically modify where the runners meet the lower airbox. Especially there's one runner that butts up against the lower aribox and mch of it is blocked off; I plastic-welded an external flange onto both the runner and the lower airbox and dirlled some very small holes in both external flanges and stitched them thogether with a little lockwire. I glued in a giant Gold Wing flat-plate K&N and cut out all the connection between the lower and upper airboxes. It made a big difference in power.

Some early Bimotas with TL engines had runners OVER the upper triple clamp into the aribox at the front of the gas tank, but they changed to a more conventional setup shortly after.

Sure would be nice to weld an RC51 steering neck onto a TL frame LOL! I like when the hig-pressure air in the nose comes striaght into the airbox, especailly if you turn your heaadlight area inside a racing bodywork nose into a huge air filter.

[Steve TLS]

Re: Has anyone run larger intake tracts horizontally back to the air box?

...

I don't know waht Sam is talking about when he says TLS airbox mods don't make a difference......

I think you may have misread him

i.e Big loss in power, his experiment.

[cyclecamper]

Re: Has anyone run larger intake tracts horizontally back to the air box?

I see. That's...interesting. I'm sure I misunderstood... Convenient that the pic retains stock-size K&N, but IMHO a K&N can be glued in, as it is never replaced, so you can use ANY K&N and cut to fit. Just take the aribox out for the annual filter cleaning. You can see the larger outline where he cut off the lower box...that's the outline I opened up on mine to connect the upper and lower airboxes. The stock lower box needs extensive mods to work decently. And all these still require lots of bends in the airflow, though the 180 inside the airbox isn't as bad if the box is big enough (which it isn't). Looking at the pic, the intake hole isn't much larger than the two TB holes. Still, I'm surprised there was a big power loss, if it was able to get cold air; it would be interesting to see the graphs. Then again, compared to mine he effectivley made his airbox smaller. Maybe glue in a bigger K&N and make a bigger hole, then add some good ductwork. IMHO it would be interesting to mold a new "lower" to plastic-weld onto the bottom of the stock box, and some runners to match.

Sam is right about the stock setup being tuned, but I got a broader powerband by getting it to flow sufficiently and making it NOT tuned, as long as you don't mind the intake noise. And to be tuned decently the upper and lower airbox volumes should be much much bigger. The guys making airboxes with the TBs inside of the box are probably on the right track IMHO.

But back to the original thread, indeed putting the ends of some ram runners thru the TLS frame truss tubes might be very good, with a v-frame or oval pod filter where each runner attaches inside the airbox. Might be able to make nice side-scoop intakes for a TLS streetfighter that would really work well. Glue two of those stock-size K&N filters laid over on their sides, one on each side of the airbox where new higher runners come in between the trusses. But you'd still want to connect the lower airbox to the upper completely and make the lower secton as large as possible, just to add volume to the airbox.

[asanz]

Re: Has anyone run larger intake tracts horizontally back to the air box?

Harry,
I have a spare TLR box if you want to play around with that?
I've never seen under the hood of a TLS but....who knows.

Aaron

[bedford4x4]

Re: Has anyone run larger intake tracts horizontally back to the air box?

I see. That's...interesting. I'm sure I misunderstood... Convenient that the pic retains stock-size K&N, but IMHO a K&N can be glued in, as it is never replaced, so you can use ANY K&N and cut to fit. Just take the aribox out for the annual filter cleaning. You can see the larger outline where he cut off the lower box...that's the outline I opened up on mine to connect the upper and lower airboxes. The stock lower box needs extensive mods to work decently. And all these still require lots of bends in the airflow, though the 180 inside the airbox isn't as bad if the box is big enough (which it isn't). Looking at the pic, the intake hole isn't much larger than the two TB holes. Still, I'm surprised there was a big power loss, if it was able to get cold air; it would be interesting to see the graphs. Then again, compared to mine he effectivley made his airbox smaller. Maybe glue in a bigger K&N and make a bigger hole, then add some good ductwork. IMHO it would be interesting to mold a new "lower" to plastic-weld onto the bottom of the stock box, and some runners to match.

Sam is right about the stock setup being tuned, but I got a broader powerband by getting it to flow sufficiently and making it NOT tuned, as long as you don't mind the intake noise. And to be tuned decently the upper and lower airbox volumes should be much much bigger. The guys making airboxes with the TBs inside of the box are probably on the right track IMHO.

But back to the original thread, indeed putting the ends of some ram runners thru the TLS frame truss tubes might be very good, with a v-frame or oval pod filter where each runner attaches inside the airbox. Might be able to make nice side-scoop intakes for a TLS streetfighter that would really work well. Glue two of those stock-size K&N filters laid over on their sides, one on each side of the airbox where new higher runners come in between the trusses. But you'd still want to connect the lower airbox to the upper completely and make the lower secton as large as possible, just to add volume to the airbox.

Very informative! Thanks for the input and ideas! It's food for thought and will certainly influence how I do my airbox mod.

I've an idea...
If someone has a spare TL-S airbox cover lying around which they're willing to donate, I'll do the following:

Put the air filter on upside down, modify the airbox cover so that it feeds through the top, raise the tank temporarily, and run a whopping great 4" or 6" intake tract up and over (or through) the windscreen and see whether a 150-250km/h roll on acceleration test is improved at all on the same stretch of road, comparing it with a couple of test runs with normal airbox mod/flapper valve removal.

I'm sure I could dig up a handycam and stopwatch to record acceleration times. Then, for very little money, and a bit of time and fussing about, I could do the experimenting and post the results. It'd be quite fun...

Obviously it would be hideously ugly, but the point of the exercise would be to prove one way or another whether ram air can be made to work, and it's the easiest way of doing it without hacking my bike to bits.

If it can be made to work well, then it's obvious that running new intake tracts between the frame truss tubes is worth pursuing.

Any takers?

[bedford4x4]

Re: Has anyone run larger intake tracts horizontally back to the air box?

Harry,
I have a spare TLR box if you want to play around with that?
I've never seen under the hood of a TLS but....who knows.

Aaron

Completely different ASAIK, Aaron. But bring it with you when we do your throttle sync and we can compare.

Cheers,

Harry

[cyclecamper]

Re: Has anyone run larger intake tracts horizontally back to the air box?

But then it's not much different from Sam's test. IMHO what you need is a larger filter or two of the stock filters, so that you can have a larger hole (or two) into the airbox.

[Steve TLS]

Re: Has anyone run larger intake tracts horizontally back to the air box?

.... Still, I'm surprised there was a big power loss, if it was able to get cold air; it would be interesting to see the graphs. .....

I think it was 5+HP loss by cutting the tower off.

Also I think he has mentioned the Cagiva Raptor. TLS motor and ECU, TLS airbox, but no inlet runners and they lose 10HP to the TLS or something.

...

I'm sure I could dig up a handycam and stopwatch to record acceleration times. Then, for very little money, and a bit of time and fussing about, I could do the experimenting and post the results. It'd be quite fun...

There's some iPhone and Windows mobile phone apps that use the accelerometer to do the calcs for you. Turn it on, put it in your pocket and go.

There's others that simply use the GPS to do all the calculations, same thing. Tell it start at 100km/h and end at 200km/h it do all the calcs for you.

[bedford4x4]

Re: Has anyone run larger intake tracts horizontally back to the air box?

But then it's not much different from Sam's test. IMHO what you need is a larger filter or two of the stock filters, so that you can have a larger hole (or two) into the airbox.

I think that Sam just cut the bottom off the airbox but didn't make up intake runners.

My idea would be to run a large tube over the top of the fairing and cut a hole through a spare airbox cover, turn a standard filter upside down so that air coming through the snorkel would run through the filter. It's been proven that the filter is not the bottle neck, because of the various people who have run the bikes without filters to see.

I agree that it would be best with a bigger filter, but I was hoping to prove that ram air would work without hacking my airbox to bits. I could try it without a filter as well, because if flow was improved through the snorkel, the filter might well become a bottleneck.

If acceleration was improved by the experiment, then it would be worth doing it properly and redesigning the intake tracts, using 2 filters, etc.

[bedford4x4]

Re: Has anyone run larger intake tracts horizontally back to the air box?

I think it was 5+HP loss by cutting the tower off.

Also I think he has mentioned the Cagiva Raptor. TLS motor and ECU, TLS airbox, but no inlet runners and they lose 10HP to the TLS or something.



There's some iPhone and Windows mobile phone apps that use the accelerometer to do the calcs for you. Turn it on, put it in your pocket and go.

There's others that simply use the GPS to do all the calculations, same thing. Tell it start at 100km/h and end at 200km/h it do all the calcs for you.

Does the Cagiva have a TLS motor or SV1000 motor?

Thanks for the heads up on the modern technology. Much easier than mucking around with camera and stopwatch, although it would be nice to put a video on youtube so that it wasn't just hearsay.

Thanks!

[Steve TLS]

Re: Has anyone run larger intake tracts horizontally back to the air box?

TLS engine and ECU.

[OneSickPsych]

TLS Airbox Stuff

oops

[bacchus51]

Re: Has anyone run larger intake tracts horizontally back to the air box?

The airbox floor beneath the air filter only exposes half the filter so firstly cut the other half away as per Steve's photo. Next match the RH intake into the box to the duct. OEM has the duct opening on the airbox only a quarter the area of the intake duct (some fibreglass work required). Thirdly remove the flapper valves.Use a high flow filter.
With all the above there is no need to increase duct sizes and nothing more to be gained.