air intake sytem on a zx6r - going naked

[ldnz]

Hey all,
Given that my fairings are looking really raggedy i've decided its time to ditch them for the while and repair them properly. This means the headlight fairing has to go as well so may as well do the whole naked conversiony thing. Now hidden in the front fairing are the ram air scoops, and below those are some big square plastic boxes attached to the air tubes. What the hell are these for? I assume its something to do with tuning and harmonics, but how critical is it all really?

I want to pull the whole ram scoop/box thingys right off where they pass through the frame. I guess I should probably be putting a grill or something over the ends to take the worst of the shit out, and its gonna take a hell of a lot of water if riding in the rain. Is this a problem? Whats the usual thing to do in these situations?

Oh and whose good at small welding jobs like making up the bracket im gonna need for headlight/instruments?

Cheers,
Ben

[imdying]

It's not the end of the world... those bikes make an excellent induction sound, make sure you don't mess that up!

[ldnz]

Damn right they do! Love that sound when the revs get up. I've found a round headlight, now just need some bar mount mirrors and a bracket to mount it all. Obviously being in the (extremely poorly paying) navy im trying to do all this on the cheap!

I guess i'll just pull the whole ram system off and see how it goes. Just can't help thinking that kwaka must have had a good reason for having these extra box things in the system.

[imdying]

It's probably good for 3hp at over 200km/h or something equally exciting, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

[bistard]

Those box thingys attached to the airscoop,are part of the ram air ,tune side of things,but are also designed to stop water getting into the air box,so it might take a little bit of trial & error to get that right
I have sitting in my garage a set of Kawasaki Factory,carbon/kelvar air scoops off a ZX9 of the same age,they might look quite cool

[ldnz]

Oohhh i'd be very interested in having a look at those. What do you want for them? The whole point of this project is to dodge the immediate expense of fixing up my fairings...

Had a chat to one of the guys at spectrum, he reckons that these intake scoops also limit air to the airbox, and without them I may have to blank off a significant part of the holes to get it to run. Haven't played around to find out yet, thats tomorrows job.

[avgas]

Just take em off - but run a mesh over the holes to 'prevent' water going in. Its carb so it dont really matter a f if some water gets in.
If it were a 955 - water in air intake is like pissing on the ecu......not good

[bistard]

Just take em off - but run a mesh over the holes to 'prevent' water going in. Its carb so it dont really matter a f if some water gets in.
If it were a 955 - water in air intake is like pissing on the ecu......not good

Of course it matters if water gets into an airbox for carbs,water does not combust,I run a ram airbox on my race bike & as soon as it rains I remove the outer air scoops & put tape
over the leading edge to stop water getting anywhere near the carbs
If you look at & what was described earlier,the standard air ducts have a section that is about doulbe the size of the inlet & sits below to trap water

[imdying]

You reckon that that's a water trap? Has it got a drain hole in the bottom? Sure it's not a resonance chamber? Water doesn't combust, but water injection has been used for a 100 years. Quantity is the problem

OP, go look at the tubes, are there any drain holes in them? It's not unusual for an airbox to have a drain tube, I would've thought they'd just put it there instead of mucking around up the front... just seems to be better (simpler, cheaper) ways to prevent water ingress than doing weird shit to the ram tubes.

[avgas]

FYI - i've actually seen an engine run fine on about 15% water. The guy used it as a cooling technique.
Kawasaki designed a water trap feature on all their 'air-ram' bikes - as water is not ideal. If your that paranoid about it you can all ways tape up the ducts as the z can still get air from under the tank.