meeni wrote:
Just to touch on the single throttle body option mentioned above, is that for space? YES roundies can't fit much (either the single throttle body option or just the quads and then a thin air filter that will probably rub on the bonnet) square nose minis have a fair bit more space so bigger/better filters and maybe even some ram pipes on the quads to help air flow but I'm not 100% sure how much can be fitted in a square nose. As I'd say there's a fair power gain to be had from quad throttle bodies on an n/a motor. Correct me if I'm Wrong on the Beemer heads but on other engines that's the case I don't actually know either but this is what I figure
Well the BMW motorbike dose have quad throttle bodies but they suck through 4 individual ram pipes
but these are inside an air box that only has a 2 & 1/2 inch or 65mm opening and this opening sucks through another air box that contains the air filter and some sensors etc.
You can see the throttle bodies and ram pipe box in the top of this pic, (the ram pipe box is cut away to see what's inside and through that between cylinder 1 & 2 you can see the top edge of the hole that will suck from the filter air box).
In this pic from the other side of the BMW engine you can see the 2nd air box which also continues off through another pipe to the actually air inlet at the front of the engine/bike.
What I'm trying to point out is that with the stock system the bikes have their seems like a lot of possible air flow restriction. The bit I'm focusing on is the ram pipe box, it only has an opening of 2 1/2" that feeds the four individual ports so in my opinion it doesn't matter if it has the throttle body before the box or after it so long as it doesn't restrict the max flow by much more that the 2 & 1/2" opening.
Also if you look at the flow in this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueTNtwvczNY the throttle body/SU creates air turbulence which is bad so (again IMO) with the single throttle body feeding the ram pipes it will remove one more restriction that effects the smooth flow to feed our engine.