All pods are not the same

The larger the Emgo pod, the more of a lip you will have. The fist pictures in the post are 60mm. All of the emgo pods have the same filter with a 61mm hole where the mounting flange is. The mounting flanes are the only difference. The smaller the diameter of your inlet for the emgo mounting flange, the less it will affect your carbs.
I would spend the extra $ and get some K&Ns.
Daniel

If K&N's didn't come with my bike, I'd still fork out the $$'s for them, and not go the Emgo route.

Here's my 2 cents on the air filter discussion. I put Emgo's on my bike this year. It was the only thing I did on the cheap. Lots of low end bog and many hours of playing around with the jetting had me puzzled as to the elusive fine tuning issues.

I finally took the Emgo's off one day and went out for a little test run on dry, dust free road (I know this shouldn't be done too often but I was curious.) The difference was amazing, no bog and the motor seemed to have a lot more power. In fact the initial start up from cold was problem-free.

Years ago I had K&N's on the bike and they never gave me any trouble and the motor seemed to be able to fill its lungs easier.

My friend who has owned a huge bike shop for 30 years and has lots of performance bike experience told me that anything other than K&N's are junk that strangle the carbs. Looks like he was right. I considered drilling a number of very tiny holes into the Emgo's filter media to open them up but decided to not cut anymore corners. My K&N's will be in shortly.

Also one member had mentioned about modifying the stock intake boots between the carbs and the head. If you have done any porting and polishing of the intake runners this matching is an easy but mandatory step that can make a ton of difference in performance.
Cheers-Colin Firth

1977 KZ650 Custom. Brought back from the dead after 13 years of neglect. Totally rebuilt from frame up. Wiseco 700 kit. Ported, polished heads. Triple angle valve job. Properly re-jetted rebuilt carbs, Filters, MAC Pipe, Barnett Clutch, Body mods, Bead blasted rims, 14 tooth sprocket front, Superbike Bars, Painted 2005 Chrysler Magnum Red with silver and gold stripes. Only 13,000 miles on bike. Runs and looks like new and does it ever jump off the line! Colin Firth-Ontario-Canada

I guess It's time to start posting again on the new KZ rider forum, so here's my thoughts on pods. While EMGO's are cheap, there not worth the time to install them. K&N's are a LOT better, but are too pricy for me. I'm using UNI dual throat foam pods on my LTD 1000 CV carbs. They seem to work really great. As with any pods you can never get around the issue of wet weather riding. They were only $40 (2 duals) direct from UNI.


I might have to work on the image posting thing :S

If you are using the UNI Filters, do yourself a favor, and only use their service kit(cleaner, and oil). I use UNI on my Honda XR400, and I only using the service kit from UNI. No dirt gets into my carb intake tract, even after a full days riding. UNI's can take a lot of cleanings. We all know that EMGO's are made of a paper-type material, and when paper gets wet, they suck like a thick milkshake thru a thin straw. :sick:

I use Emgo pods on my carburetor test bikes because lots of folks use Emgo pods. I do think they flow more air than an OEM filter in a stock airbox on a VM set up. A K&N drop in filter is also another option I can use and they flow better than an OEM Kaw drop in filter. I also feel a lot of turbulance when I test with Emgo pods... the airflow ins't consistant but you can jet for these pods. I have always had decent luck with K&N and UNI filters. I would probably use UNI if I used them on a personal bike due to cost vs performance. The only issue I can see with the UNI sock type pods is that if you have a red stripe on your bike, they will look good but if your bike is charcoal/silver or plain purple, they might clash bwhahaha I am surprised more folk don't use the POD style UNI filters sold by JCW. I haven't tried these but they are nice looking on most KZs.

If you clean the K&N's they don't look as red as when they are new. Check out this picture:



Post edited by: CoreyClough, at: 2005/11/07 12:01

The uni filters come in black, green and red.

www.unifilter.com/clamp-on.htm

The Uni filters have a lesser lip on the inside (Uni went to the trouble to taper the lip so there will be less of a lip on the edge) and dont affect performance like the Emgos.
Daniel

So, do the foam air filter kits from JCWhitney work good? Do they fit over the carbs better than the emgo pods? For $45.99 they seem to be a good deal, and they look great as well. If not, I will go K&N...

Thanks

Post edited by: ratmeister, at: 2005/11/26 09:22

I really like the looks of the UNI as well... I use a UNI filter on my Husqvarna 1979 390cr and it works really well... plan on getting UNI's for the KZ this winter.

I think I'm going to get the ones with the chrome caps and powder-coat them to match the bike.

-Claude

Post edited by: kzreeder, at: 2005/11/26 08:09

one way I went around this problem on a different bike was to buy a larger diameter pod filter and mount it on the stock airbox boots. This ensures the air jets will not be obstructed and provides the smooth, straight air flow of the stock boots.

I cut in half a factory defective Emgo pod to see what the extra ridge was about. Here is what I found: