Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums Performance Mods snorkel, whats it

So what is the snorkel there for? Noise abatement,Velocity tube,pre-cleaner,moisture barrier? Al

Yes.

Remove it, it is evil....

There is an argument that the top, rear-ward facing part is to keep water out, but I never had a problem. The bottom straight part is useless.

Grump, whats the difference when having the snorkel removed, any problems, and how does the bike run ? better or just the same. this snorkel thing has me a bit confused
Thanks
Herb

Herb, when I first heard about the snorkle thing, I took mine out and inspected my air filter. The bottom inch was dirty and the top 4 or 5 inches were clean, so the snorkle really respricts the flow!

After doing pipes and jets and not being really impressed, pulling the snork made the most immediately noticeable difference at the throttle. It does make the machine honk like a 2-stroke (for those of you who know the R5/RD 2-stroke carb honk), but if you know it, it's not a bad sound. It takes nothing to yank it out, just pull the seat and yank it. If you don't like what happens, just pop it back in. If you like the performance without, but you're concerned about the supposed water protecting properties of the top curve of the snork, cut the bottom length off and snap the curved bit back on.
But at least yank it for a short ride to see what you think!

ok, thanks, but were is it and how easy can you get to it, is it a major or quick job. some pics would be fantastic.
does this snorkel removal open up and let the engine breath better.
Thanks for your help
Herb

herbz -

check out the archives. a couple guys did some real good tutorials with photos way back when , may still be there.

Herb,
Take the seat off and the snorkel is right there. 3 bolts hold the cover over the air filter and the snorkel fits into that cover. It will come right out of the cover, leaving a hole roughly the same diameter as the inside of the air filter. Now the intake can draw more air. With the cover in place, you still have the filter sealed so that only filtered air goes into the engine, but now there's a lot more..

If you remove the cover and the air filter, stick your fingers in the holes between the airbox and the carbs. There may be 2 other rubber pieces in there that can be removed (just yank them out, I'm told..) to open up the airflow even more. My '03 TA didn't have those pieces, so I'm just repeating what has been said on the boards before.

Both of these actions are reversible, so try 'em and see if it makes you happy. I'd do one at a time, put some miles on the bike, note how it starts, how it accelerates, etc. and keep an eye on your pipes. You will be adding more air to the mix, you may then need to add more fuel to keep it from running too lean.

And that's a whole different can of worms..

A lot of that initial lean condition is because of the air mix screws. Something EVERYONE should do regardless of their jetting/snorkles/pipes etc is to pull out those EPA caps and adjust the screws so they are EVEN with eachother if nothing else, but probably more like 3 turns out to start. And yeah, re-jetting isn't a bad idea. I might even have a set of slightly larger than stock mains if anyone wants them.

Ok, so you guys are saying that pulling that rubber thing out altogether does NOT cause moisture problems? I keep looking at the setup, and it looks like if you leave the thing out in the rain on the kickstand (hey, it's gonna happen eventually) that water can basically just pour down into the filter -- which, to the untrained eye, would be BAD.

The result, then, is that you should just take a razor to the tube portion of the thing? It clearly restricts the airflow...

The other thing, of course, is that I'm a little worried about her running lean... but I guess that's an incentive to do the carbs, hunh?

--Jaeger

Well,
It is under the seat, after all. I doubt that enough water could get in there to do anything unless there was a hurricane passing thru. On the same idea, the guys with the freak have no airbox - the filters just hang off the back of the carbs - and there haven't been any reports on here about moisture problems. Then there's boogieman's set up where the filters hang outside of the carbs....

I don't think water entry would be a problem...

If you're worried about water entering your filter, K&N makes a "sock" that fits over each individual filter that keeps the water out.

From what i understand, the snorkel acts like a tuned port in a speaker cabinet allowing a predetermined amount of air in that matches the exaust in order to get the best performance with the jetting and exaust as the bike comes stock. If true, this would mean removing it would be detremental to performance. Some people seem to say it DOES help, tho others say performance was degraded which would tend to confirm the port theory. True or not, i dunno, but it does make sense. Possibly those who say it helped also rejetted and those who found a loss of performance didn't rejet. Just an observation, i'm only relaying what i've read here and elsewhere.

I get the impression that it was put in to muffle the sound of the intake system to make the noise nazis happy. From what I hear, desnorkling a stock bike doesn't seem to make much difference in performance one way or the other, but the sound level increases. BUT, when you open up the far end of the system with modified pipes, there is a substantial power increase when the rubber bits are ripped out.

Most people who have modified the exhaust have re-jetted, turned out the air mix screws (3 to 4 turns),removed the snorkle, UNI filter or gone Freak. It's a snowball effect. You have to increase air flow through the entire system. If you stay stock and don't do anything you're ok. If you touch any part of the bike that increases air flow you have to finish the job or she'll run too lean. In my opinion it's all or nothing.

Quite clearly -- modifying one part necessitates adjusting the remainder to match. Currently, i have TOR pipes on the bike but nothing else. I'm hoping ot increase the airflow and very shortly get hte carbs done to increase the fuel... while we're chatting about it, gents, honestly, how rotten is it to adjust the carbs yourself? I'm largely a rookie wrencher, but i'm willing to try. I successfully pulled the air injectors myself (yay me), but how difficult is the carb adjustment compared to that?

As far as the snorkel goes -- ok, cool. I'll take her for a spin today and post up my observations tomorrow. I'm curious to see how this works. Tee hee.

--Jaeger

Carb adjustement isn't very hard, once you can get at the adjusters. Early in the '04 production run, they changed to a special screw that required a D shaped tool for adjustment. Prior to that, they had a slotted screw hidden behund a soft metal plug. Best to refer to Dingua's web page to see where the screw is because he has a lot of pictures.

Once you have removed the covers or gotten the D tool, you simply adjust one for best idle speed, readjust the speed with the black knob below the left carb, then adjust the other for best idle speed. Especially if you live in a warm area, it is a good idea to scew the idle adjusters out about 1/4 turn from where the idle speed is fastest so the engine runs a little cooler.
A lot of people try to keep both carburettors adjusted exactly the same but, because of variations from one side to the other, it works better to adjust them individually.

I don't know why we have a snorkel on our bikes. Makes absolutely no sense, since they didn't even give us a periscope to go with it!!! Geez!!!!

I feel so bad about it, I have spiked my cylinders so that I can never fire the engine over again!!!

Since no one else has done so yet....


See, they're not all evil.

I took mine out....the bike sounds great under wot...ummm....was'nt water injection something that was popular...25 years ago?....i have never had water in my aircleaner...

Took the snorkel off complete .. Noticed a flat spot during 1st gear acceleration .. Put the snorkel back in with bottom cut off. Seems back to normal ... Only mod on bike is last baffle in exhaust out .. 2.5 turns on carb air screws ..