Redesigned RamAir filter available for ordering

[Chris Kelley]

From Ramair's current website: "It gives a dramatic improvement in airflow from the OEM filter which in turn leads to better throttle response, torque and more importantly horse power." (emphasis added).

To me this is quite an accurate statement. Look at Mike 188's bike. Talk all you want, the cost of three puny K&N2780 pods is about the same as a Ramair here in OZ. FFS you are buying an air filter for your bike, not a trip to the moon with NASA guys. There are a number which work well. This one also allows easy fitment and future maintenance of plugs etc. Pick one you like and buy it. If you really have a hotrod engine, it(ramair) may cost you 5 hp on 200. If you want that look with the claw on the side, the put up with the small power loss, or run no filter and suck shyte into your engine, it will lose power anyway after a bit of dirt goes thru. By far the vast majority of folk do not ever use the wide open throttle more than about 3 % of ride time anyway. It is a storm in an air box..

Ramair's claim, "It gives a dramatic improvement in airflow from the OEM filter which in turn leads to better throttle response, torque and more importantly horse power." means nothing to me. It's just more noise to go along with all the claims that a newly discovered fruit can make me drop 15 lbs in 3 days and a magic pill will grow my junk like a horse. I'm extremely jaded about the claims that companies make on the internet without some sort of official data to back them. I've never purchased a Ramair product so I don't even have brand loyalty or experience to fall back on. Furthermore this is my first foray into the realm of motor sports. I've had a bike before, but it wasn't something I wanted to improve, it was just something I rode and had someone else work on. I'm trying to change that with this bike. I want to make it mine. Despite my desire I'm woefully lacking in the skills and so I get hung up on the things I know, and generally x gives more torque and hps than y is pretty clear even if it may not be the whole picture. I get that these sorts of decisions are tedious for you, but for me every decision is still monumental.

That said, I have no doubt about your statements, or the statements of others on this forum. Most everyone here seems to be on the up and up. I always like to see data provided by the producer, and I don't see why expecting that data to be available is so unrealistic. I wanted numbers before I made a decision and since it seems I may have missed some comparable data in other posts so I'll try to dig that up.

I also have to admit that I seem to have made a mistake. Somehow I'd gotten it in my head that the pods were significantly cheaper here in the States than the Ramair, but I double checked and it turns out I was wrong. The investment is about the same, so I'm leaning more and more toward the Ramair just because of the maintenance aspect.

Also thanks for the numbers @Scorp !

 

[forklift]

A

I believe the heart of the request that dobro has made under all his charm and eloquence is a set of raw numbers from some sort of authority on a stock (or nearly stock) bike. Or at the very least that's the information I would like. We've gotten input from Carpenter and Lush that the Ramair performance for a moded engine is just under performance when compared to the trip K&N 1770s. Which is fantastic. However for those of us who don't intend to make the sorts of changes that these two gents routinely make to these bikes, that input isn't very helpful.

The price of a Ramair is not insignificant, and if a cheaper set of K&N 2780 pods can produce similar performance increases, why bother? There may be other reasons to choose the Ramair over the K&N pods like maintenance concerns, but we'd still be making an uniformed decision/investment. In the end we still don't know if the two systems performance is comparable on a stock-ish configuration. I've actually had these reservations myself when it comes to the two options. I test software for a living, I find details for a given environment very useful. I've been keeping an eye out on this site for numbers to pop up for my configuration or something close, but I haven't seen any. In addition I also find it a little cheesy that Ramair decided not to post those numbers themselves despite a notice that they would (though I'd be fine with the numbers coming from somewhere else).

Now if someone has those numbers in another thread or another resource by all means point us to them. I'd be happy to go play quietly in the corner.

After going to the website again and reading the info given I see no grand claims. It does mention that it increases airflow. I think due to the opinion of experts that have voiced there findings we can say that is fact.

Ramair's claim, "It gives a dramatic improvement in airflow from the OEM filter which in turn leads to better throttle response, torque and more importantly horse power." means nothing to me. It's just more noise to go along with all the claims that a newly discovered fruit can make me drop 15 lbs in 3 days and a magic pill will grow my junk like a horse. I'm extremely jaded about the claims that companies make on the internet without some sort of official data to back them. I've never purchased a Ramair product so I don't even have brand loyalty or experience to fall back on. Furthermore this is my first foray into the realm of motor sports. I've had a bike before, but it wasn't something I wanted to improve, it was just something I rode and had someone else work on. I'm trying to change that with this bike. I want to make it mine. Despite my desire I'm woefully lacking in the skills and so I get hung up on the things I know, and generally x gives more torque and hps than y is pretty clear even if it may not be the whole picture. I get that these sorts of decisions are tedious for you, but for me every decision is still monumental.

That said, I have no doubt about your statements, or the statements of others on this forum. Most everyone here seems to be on the up and up. I always like to see data provided by the producer, and I don't see why expecting that data to be available is so unrealistic. I wanted numbers before I made a decision and since it seems I may have missed some comparable data in other posts so I'll try to dig that up.

I also have to admit that I seem to have made a mistake. Somehow I'd gotten it in my head that the pods were significantly cheaper here in the States than the Ramair, but I double checked and it turns out I was wrong. The investment is about the same, so I'm leaning more and more toward the Ramair just because of the maintenance aspect.

Also thanks for the numbers @Scorp !

If as you say you're jaded about company claims without official data backing it up then I'm sure you would not believe any claim any company made about performance. Therefore it apears to be a crap shoot. Buy it if you want it and like anything in life there is going to be a certain risk. it certainly won't be the last risk you take in your life. By the way it's an air filter not an artificial heart, being wrong In its purchase won't adversely affect you life.

 

[Dawg68]

High Flow Filters;
Think of your engine as a breathing machine. It needs to breathe in fuel and air, and it needs to breath out exhaust gasses. Anything that gets in the way of that process is going to impede its ability to breathe. In reality of course, there are plenty of things in the way from air filters and flow sensors in the intake system, to catalysers and bizarre kinks and curves in the exhaust system. By eliminating or reducing these constrictions, you can allow your engine to breathe more easily. By far the easiest and cheapest thing to start with is the air filter. From the factory, air filters are designed to be a compromise of filtering the guck out whilst letting the air through. Aftermarket manufacturers such as K&N and Jamex have been making high-flow air filters for years. The design of the filters is slightly different and they allow more air to pass through the filter whilst still stopping the majority of harmful particles. Again, like all these things, the claims of increased power can be hugely exaggerated. In truth, simply changing the air filter will probably add another 2 or 3hp to your engine. More air going in more easily means the engine management system will adjust the fuelling accordingly and you'll get a better fuel-air charge in the cylinder, resulting in a slight increase in power.

Cold Air Induction Kits

The basic idea with these is to make the passage from the filter to the engine less convoluted. When air is forced to go around corners, it causes turbulence which slows down the flow. By trying to make the intake pipes smoother and straighter, the idea is to give the air more chance to get to the engine and less chance of being screwed up in corners with turbulence. Cold-air kits normally remove the factory airbox from the car and poke the air intake into one of the front wings or right up front. The air in your engine bay is hot - really hot - and hot air is not conducive to good combustion. By routing the intake to somewhere where it isn't going to be sucking hot air from under the hood, you get cooler air going into your engine. Because cooler air is denser, you can get a better fuel-air charge into the cylinder than you can by simply changing the stock air filter. Cold-air intake kits can add another 3 or 4hp of raw power to the engine but more often than not, you'll notice an increase in torque lower down the rev range too.

That was an excerpt out of the Fuel and Engine Bible. All that to say is I don't care what a manufacturer claims on the box...or the website with respect to performance gains. From my mechanical education, air, Fuel and proper tuning is the beginings for top performance. As far as I can see from the Ram Air filter system I'm getting air right at the throttle bodies, no pipes, tubes, corners.....etc. I don't expect unrealistic HP gains from the air filter, I do expect it to allow my engine to breath better and I believe this filter system will do just that......as claimed.

Sometimes a little knowledge Based on theory and just taking a good look at a product to see if it will do a better job as compared to your factory configuration is all you need to determine if it will work better. Right now I'm sitting on my air filter and it draws air in from the back of the seat....RamAir, K&N triples.....have to work better than the factory configuration.

 

[Neville Lush]

Sigh.... the rocket three has a really restrictive crappy air filter/plenum system, which most folk here know or can search the site for. Pretty much ANY decent filters that remove all the ducting and crap will yield a conservative 10hp gain IF TUNED TO SUIT. I cannot provide any data with this if the bike has a stock exhaust system, as in 10 years I have never tuned a bike with a stock muffler. The closest thing to a stock muffler is the TORS. There is plenty of info on that, over and over, and bloody over. Uni-filters, K&Ns little and large, Pipercross, Ramair, there is stacks of evidence. If you want bang for bucks it is the cheapest power you will get, buy a small crowbar and ease open the corner of your wallet.

 

[Big Head]

I just placed my order for a set of RamAir filters to go on my Trike. Now I have to try and dig up enough change to get the carpenter exhaust....

 

[hogweed]

OK, so my throttle cable snapped on my way to Laughlin, and I had to cancel my trip thanks to the typical 7 day lead time to get any Triumph parts here on the West Coast Anyway, at least that gave me time to install the redesigned RamAir, replace a leaking cam cover gasket and check the valves.

As others have reported, the filter kit is very well thought out, and the installation was a breeze with the detailed instructions. However, I think they still didn't quite nail the rubber collar redesign. The groove that matches to the lip in the throttle body has been cut much lower (distance 'a' in the first photo below) than in the stock plenum. This requires you to push the filter farther down the throttle bodies before the lip engages. That's fine and should result in a better fit, but it's almost as if RamAir was not aware of the secondary throttle plate axle casting which is in the way (see the 2nd photo below).

The filter does lock down to the throttle body lip very positively when pushed down. However, on my first two attempts at tightening the clamps (very gently), I noticed the clamp pressure forced the lip out of the groove either on the upper or lower side of the throttle body. I think you could cut small notches in the area highlighted in red in the 2nd photo and have a great fit, but I didn't want to cut up my brand new filter at least quite yet. Instead, I pushed the filter firmly against the throttle body while tightening the clamp, and that seemed to do the trick.

Overall I'm very happy with the filter and I think it fits fine now, but I can see a possibility for installation problems even with the new design. Once done tightening the clamps, make sure the rubber collars still sit perfectly perpendicular to the throttle bodies!

Why the FOOK couldn't somone at Ramair just copy the orignal rubbers !!!!!!!

 

[cr0ft]

Why the FOOK couldn't somone at Ramair just copy the orignal rubbers

The new model has the appropriate grooves to match the throttle intakes and thicker material in the filter itself. So even if it's not 100% perfect, it's good enough.

 

[CanberraR3]

I lost interest in reading this thread ages ago. I actually find the debate over how much power you get from simply installing a filter quite hilarious. One member even claimed 20 extra hp - and then chucked in as if it didn't matter that he also added pipes and had the bike tuned by Lushy. The filter didn't add 20hp, it helped enable them to be released. No filter can add anything, only reduce a restriction.

@dobro has come through, true to form. I bet he doesn't believe that Colgate actually cleans whiter than white either.

 

[Ugarte]

I ordered one just because I don't want to re install the stock intake system after removing it for a valve check. I have re installed that pile of garbage too many times already, what a PITA. It will be nice to have some more storage space underneath the seat too.

HP? Who cares.

 

[cr0ft]

I actually find the debate over how much power you get from simply installing a filter quite hilarious.

Whether the filter gives the HP or "allows you to get the hp" by other changes is kind of immaterial, as without a filter that breathes better you won't get any HP.... But much like Ugarte, I want this filter mainly because it lets me remove all that annoying plumbing, and some intake roar to make the bike a tad bit less over-civlized is also nice. Plus, it's so much more elegant than yards of plastic plumbing and fits neatly under the bearclaw. Good things all round.