Has anyone tried using a clamp mounted air filter on the intake?

[Hunterbear]

I was wondering if anyone has tried to use a clamp mounted air filter (attaches directly to engine intake) on the RC and ditch the airbox and its accompanied parts. The engine intake angle seems higher up and in a better location than on a carburated bike and makes it seem more feasible to use a clamp mounted air filter and skip the airbox mod entirely. Any drawbacks other than intake noise (which I already have experience with on another bike) and increased air volume possibly causing the bike to run even leaner in stock form?

I know it was more popular on carbureted bikes. The RC is the first fuel injected bike I've owned. I had a two stroke road bike that had a clamp mounted air filter on the carb and I never had any issues (even in the rain) other than there is definitely more intake roar. But that never bothered me because the engine and exhaust noise drowned it out when you got up to speed.

I was thinking of doing this to my RC and reposition the lithium battery, that I replaced the stock battery with, in roughly in the same place as it is on the Duke 390 (where the airbox kind of is) and using the extra room in the battery compartment to store the tools and other things ie. a cellphone,gloves,etc.

I know the RC runs leaner, but would using a Power Commander and getting it tuned be sufficient? I don't know if a fuel injected four stroke would benefit from it as much as my two stroke did.

Just wanted some experienced opinions to expand my knowledge about this, either for or against it.

 

[Bagwell]

They refer to those filters as Pod Filters usually.

 

[RC_AB]

Heat would be something to think about, as these bikes run pretty hot most of the time. With the fairing I don't know how much "cool" air is passed into that area, it might be a negative spot for air..and it's just surrounded by the hot air from the engine. The stock airbox runs a snorkel up under the passenger seat to help with this. But, that may not be a problem at all in that area, I have no idea haha

 

[JKBC]

Back in the 1970s some people even ran velocity stacks (no filter at all) but with carburettors like the big 40mm Dell'Orto's you'd put on a Ducati 900SS (removing the stock 32mm carbs and air-filters they came with..I had mine like that plus Imola cams and the factory high pipes which are headers with no baffles at all for a while as a street-bike) re-jetting the carbs was easy for the home mechanic but life was different then especially on the road. In these politically correct times fuel injection make engines start with no skill required and pollute less (lean burn), better mileage etc. If you are riding it as a street-bike you probably might as well leave it. Often the actual last bit of the inlet track, past the airbox towards the intake valves, is still shaped like a velocity stack and using a freer-flowing filter in the airbox would be a good compromise.