reg air box or pods

[TONIO]

Hey guy's need you advice I am looking tor post on subject thought i had seen it before I am wondering if pods would do better on my bike can anybody give me some pros and cons

i have the 81 xs11oo special. thanks for the info in advance

[randy]

You're going to get about a hundred different opinions on this. personally, my opinion is if you have the stock exhaust, stick with the stock airbox.

[XSPastor]

I agree with Randy. Pods open up a whole new can of worms because they drastically change the way the engine breathes. Plan on rejetting the carbs if you make the change. Stock airbox and exhaust is best! IMHO

[TADracer]

Yes, what Randy and Tim said. Changing one thing will affect other things. Most simple bolt-ons are simple to bolt on and then not so simple to ADJUST.

I have pods and aftermarket 4-1 on my 79 special and it has taken rejetting the carbs and a bit of cam degreeing to take advantage of these simple mods and remove the resulting flat spots in the power curve.

If you are not into doing more than just bolting on the pods then keep the stock air box.

[TONIO]

pods

thanks fellas thats what i had remembered from reading the posts in the past just wanted to make sure before i get in to deep im not as mechanically inclined as i wish to be. will be keeping the stock air box.

Thanks agian

Tonio

[petejw]

i agree with all the above
but if u wanted to use pods
the 81 carbs r the ones 2 use imho.

[fredintoon]

Are pods better?

On an otherwise stock bike most likely not because you must adjust the jet sizes if you fit pods just to keep the same performance.
But will pods let you take the carbs off in 1/10th of the time and without loosing any blood or skin or patience?
You betcha!
And besides, pods are magic.
With the stock airbox in place my carbs plugged up at all too frequent intervals.
Since I removed that accurséd thing and fitted four UNIpods instead the carbs haven't plugged up at all.

[XSPastor]

Since I removed that accurséd thing and fitted four UNIpods instead the carbs haven't plugged up at all.

Hmmmm. The stock airbox made your carbs "plug up?" Two things plug carbs: stuff in the gas and stuff in the air. Maybe your stock airbox had a leak that allowed unfiltered air to enter the carbs. Maybe the PO drilled holes in the wrong place in the stock airbox. The airbox, if correctly installed and functioning should have no bearing on the frequency of carbs "plugging up."

[randy]

Or maybe it was blow-by?

[XSPastor]

Or maybe it was blow-by?

In my mind blow-by would seem to be a constant determined by the state of the cylinders and piston rings. I don't see how it would be effected by the airbox.
I guess since blow-by gasses are not routed to the airbox with pods, there could be some difference. Blow-by would be unburned fuel mixture and would richen the mixture as it was breathed in through the vent hose attached to the stock airbox.
But even blow-by gasses come from the filtered air taken into the engine through the air filter and so should be relatively free from particulates. So how would they be contibuting to plugging up the carbs? Hey fredintoon, what part of the carb was plugging up? The little screens before the float valves? The air jets?

[tiredoffixing]

I agree it is so much easier to service the carbs with pods.

[randy]

The blow-by gasses are not filtered in the stock airbox.

[XSPastor]

The blow-by gasses are not filtered in the stock airbox.

The big fat tube that comes from the engine to the airbox? Of course that air is filtered before it re-enters the engine. Anything connected to the outside of that airbox has to go through the air filter to get to the carbs. I agree it's not filtered before it gets to the airbox if that's what you mean.

[XSPastor]

You might be right, Randy. I forgot about all that ducting at the top of the airbox. Is that where the vent gets routed to the carbs without going through the air filter?

[fredintoon]

Not what I said

Tim sez:- "The stock airbox made your carbs "plug up?"
No Tim,
I said the pods were magic.
As you sign yourself "Pastor" I'd guess you don't believe in magic so here's a mundane explanation:-
After my carb cleaning added up to a "quintuple clean" they were finally clean enough to run nicely over a long period. Coincident with this I got fed up with the hassle of removing the stock airbox and swapped to pods.