new guy, need some info on air cleaner box removal

okay, so Im confused... don't beat me up here but I got this bike to have a project, my first bike project to be exact... picked it up for $500 and it ran great until I let a friend use it for transportation to and from work... to make a long story short... it hasnt been started in about three months... Im having problems with that which after checking everything and referencing this site, I pretty much have it narrowed down to wiring grounding out against my frame, draining my battery and so on... the airbox issue, well to be totally honest I didn't get the bike because it looked cool, because in my opinion it doesn't and its not a performance piece, so having said that I looked at other kz's in the area and seen these pods, I thought, sweet... screw the bulky airbox, I'll get pods, move my battery and try a bob build... so in saying that I revert back to my statement about the airbox preventing airflow, I want to retract that statement since the bike ran just fine, actually good with it over the past 26k miles... so the pods is just a cosmetic thing, and I don't mind getting intimate with my carbs, I welcome it... the ounce of freedom I get from wrenchin anything combustible is well worth the time. So, if I go with pods, Im gonna have constant jetting issues?! because the three kz's Ive seen have been running pods supposedly for 3-4 years with no problems after initial re-jet... these were the (81)650, (83)750, and (83)1000

the wolf is watching wrote:

the ounce of freedom I get from wrenchin anything combustible is well worth the time.

Ahmen to that!

In my experience I have solved probelms on a couple of bikes one a kaw the other a yamaha by removing pods and reinstalling the factory airbox. Lost of people do run pods, so its not impossible to make them run that way by any means. Plus if your are building a chopper/bobber its not going to be a daily driver I take it, so if it is kinda finiky running on pods who cares as long as it looks mean and runs like a raped ape. Right?

Ok...my two cents? After busting my damned knuckles trying to remove those oh so hard connectors from box to carbs that after the years have hardened to plastic consistency I took them off and replaced with pods. Because it made my bike run oh so much faster???? No way. You have a 550 so I don't see that it will make much difference one way or another in leaps and bounds but you will be glad you removed it because it is a real PITA but you will figure that out when you have to take those carbs off to clean them from time to time.
You shouldn't cut them to take them out. Just take the carbs off so you have more room to work with, clean them up really nice that you have them off, and pull that puppy out and leave it out. If later you want to put it back on>???? you can. You can always throw it on ebay for someone who is a purist and believes the airbox must be there to have their bike back to "stock" specs.
I wanted to keep my bike stock until that happened. Got the vance exhaust and did the pods and was happier with the performance and then of course now it's gone way too far but put the pods you will see how much easier life is for you later when you need to take them off to clean them.

After reading the mod article in question, I was a bit confused without images to refer to (yes, they are on photobucket-but it's hard to tell which pic refers to what). Looking at the parts, why couldn't you just shorten the tube that goes inside the filter and be done with it? Or does anyone have any better pics?