I am wondering if something like this could be done without hurting performance. I guess what I am asking is if I were to use a U shaped piece of tubing/pipe and attach the cone filter like this one, would the U shaped tubing hurt performance? I realize putting the filter this way won't help performance.

Unless you got really short legs...

One of the potential problems with a real "ram air" approach is that if you really start to "ram" air into the carb throat....you will be lowering the vacuum created in the carb throat and upsetting the fuel/air mix.  The fuel is pulled up out of the float bowl and though the metering jets and emulsion tubes by the vacuum in the carb throat.  The carb float bowl is vented up through the tubes that exit the top of the carb and go up under the fuel tank.....and those will not pressurize the float bowl to match the ram air that is created.  You could potentially re-route those tubes to the intake air that is being boosted.......but in reality hanging an air filter out in the breeze is not really going to create any ram air effect that will do much.  (Drag cars that use ram air pressurize the entire carb so that the fuel/air mixture is consistent.)  If you truly created a ram air system for the Savage that made much boost....then you have to worry that the gravity fuel system can flow fuel down into the pressurized float bowl.

Hanging a cone filter out in the breeze is going to be more of a fashion statement than a performance mod.

The larger the radius of the bend the smoother the air flow will be, so if you give this a shot (I like the idea personally and would like to know how it goes for you) try and find the largest radius bend possible.

That or you could have a straight section on either side of the u-bend so you still get the advantage of the straight sections that way.

IMHO... it's a waste of time, money and power.

Most diagrams will show you graphs such as this



Oh, gee, umpteen percent performance increase !  

What they don't tell you is that these measurements were taken in a laboratory, where they can "tailor" atospheric parameters to suit their (commercial) requirements.



In the real world, the true air flow will improve (maybe) like this ...



... where most of the time the improvement is negligible ... co$t a lot, nice to look at, but really...  

Furthermore, many tests are done on filters such as this



where air is compressed in the "doughnut hole" and throught the filtering material...
...but then they sell you THIS filter in the same box, with the same fancy diagrams, but with actually a completely different aerodynamic response...



What's wrong with this filter ? NOTHING, provided you fit it as part of a system...



...where the plastic shroud acts like a "virtual chamber" where air pressure is made (more or less) equal on all sides of the filter.

Now... imagine fitting such a filter to our Savage, with a "U"-shaped pipe, so that it looks forward.
The plastic "nose" will actually deflect air away from the front part of the filert, creating an area of LOW air pressure, much like what we see when a pickup with a tarpaulin runs at speed and the front part of the tarpaulin will inflate ?



Nevermind the "Trailertail", look at the Orange lines in the nose and "ears" of the truck, that's low air pressure, which makes the tarp swell in the front of the loading bay.

The same happens to a "closed nose" ram air filter   little or no air in the front half of the filter.

It is no wonder that V-Twin professionals at HD give you a good air filter setup as standard, and leave it to the individual to ruin it all...

Harley Davidson OEM setup
GOOD aftermarket airbox
BAD aftermarket airbox

12 volt electric turbo unit..
get the  one with switch to activate unit only at wot

e-racing motor sports

http://www.electricsupercharger.com/

That's a joke,... looks like it would slow airflow if anything... ...