I read a really old post on page 300 something. A guy had asked if you can have too much air entering the carb or if it will only take what it needs?

his question wasnt really answered so im here to ask it again.

i have a lot of space now that i removed my air box and original battery so i want to get a HUGE air filter that sits in the middle of all that space but i dont know if this new air filter will hurt anything by letting WAY to much air in?

can any one help me here?

I have a K&N high flo cone air filter at the moment and i did re-jet the carb to suit. but i want to get a massive highflow filter like made for a car for aesthetic purposes. A big Lung for my big single big lung      i just dont know if that will allow WAY too much air in to the carb and wreck anything internally by doing so. or if the carb will only take in as much air as it needs.

The engine will take in as much air as it possibly can ! And it will take in the necessary fuel along w/ it,....despite what you have been led to believe.
I never seen an engine yet that didn't perform noticeably better w/ no air cleaner whatsoever.

Just throwing on the biggest air filter you can find won't give you the best results even if you rejet.

You need to tune the intake to your needs.
at a minimum, the intake length needs to be at least as long as the rubber ducky on the carb.  Any shorter you'll have inefficiencies that'll affect performance.

Most of the cone filter installs have these inefficiencies and can inprove their performance with a velocity cone between the carb and filter.

I have a K/N slip-in, and a Shorty muffler,.. with rejet... runs great, but ran like cr@p when I pulled the airbox side cover...
So,.. you can have too much of a good thing... ...

Remember too, that it will take more or less air depending on your exhaust. If you add a DYNA, or other more free-flowing exhaust, your carb will pull more air. But bigger isn't always better. I imagine that there's a proper sized filter for how your bike is set up, and that anything else that's larger would either be unnecessary, or just purely decorative.

I did see a guy post pictures of his bike a while back, and he had mounted a huge car-style air filter onto his carb; it was angled out 90 degrees to the side, as you described. I remember him saying that he had a terrible time getting the jetting right on the carb with that filter. not sure what ever came of it, but I know he was working with Lancer to get it sorted out.

Lancer has always been great about responding to my messages, and he knows his stuff for sure. If you really want the Correct air filter for your bike; ask him...

It's got nothing to do with matching the intake-boot length, it just has to do with the super-short distance between the mouth of the air-filter and the mouth of the carb. The turbulence doesn't have time to smooth out before it enters the carb. A velocity stack or "trumpet" will cure this.

Cavi Mike wrote on 08/15/12 at 17:07:40:

Exactly right. Turbulent air doesn flow freely at all,....can be the same as choking it. No such thing as too much air, or too big an aircleaner !! Ram air induction is even better yet. Anytime you have to rejet, its because you had turbulent air, either before or after the air intake mod.
In some cases you may have even created a vacuum on the intake area, completely defeating the purpose. This is why the OEM air intake components are hard to beat. You think there ain't no engineering into the intake system for free flowing....non turbulent air,....think again.