[thelayneman]

Forgive me if this topic has been covered before...

I was scanning ebay and came upon the "BoxR Ram Airbox", for sale at $365.
I stay pretty current with my 03 954, and know that people have experimented with home made ram air systems, with basically no success.
This, however looks like what may be the real deal.
My question is... is it?
Has anyone installed, bought or played with one of these yet?
I am very interested in hearing about it if someone out there has. Send me a link or tell me about it here.
or ----------?

[929ADAM]

give us a link and post pics!

[929RRider]

Bump... I'd also like to know what you guys think!

[thelayneman]

Here is the link for the Ebay ad. It has ended since I posted this, so look quick... Wonder why the seller didnt relist it . Hmmm...


eBay Motors: BoxR Ram Airbox fits HONDA CBR954RR 02-03 (item 190294291546 end time Mar-23-09 13:33:10 PDT)

[929RRider]

This is what I've found out so far. The BoxR is actually made by Hotbodies, but it's been discontinued for a while. Aparently Abtech tried it at some point, but I can't find any specific review of it's performance. From what I can gather, basically there was little to no performance gain by using it. That being said, I purchased one of the two listed on ebay and will be providing my own review.

Why would I spend the money if I already know it's not going to give me great results? Well, two reasons. The first is that my bike is far from stock (Hindle/PC3R/Custom cams/Ported Head/12.5:1) and I've found very real gains by just cutting out large holes in the inner fairing panels just so my snorkels can get more air. What's real gains? how's 1.7mph in the quarter mile (from an average of 144.8 to 146.5mph). The second reason is that I recently modified my airbox to receive air from below. I moved the radiator down 50mm and made a fiberglass duct to send the air into the bottom of the airbox. This has also helped my high speed performance. I can't tell you by how much because I haven't been back to the track, but in comparison to my performance benchmark (My best friend rides a Busa) I'm now faster. He claims that now he doesn't start catching back up to me after 160 as he used to. I usually pull about 3 bikes on him from 50 to 150 and then he catches back up almost 2 bikes from 160 to 191 where I hit my limiter.

Now, my airbox is working great as is; BUT, it's not the cleanest job ever and I'm sure I have leaks. If the BoxR can provide similar performance while reducing a pound or two of weight and looking cleaner. Well, then it's well worth the money to me.

[thelayneman]

Great response! Will be waiting for your review.

[thelayneman]

"and I've found very real gains by just cutting out large holes in the inner fairing panels just so my snorkels can get more air. "


Just out of curiosity, where exactly did you cut these holes? How large is large?

[929RRider]

There are two triangle shaped pieces on the inner fairing. These pieces already have holes in them. On the right one, the headlight and cluster wiring harness goes through this hole. I basically just cut everything I could without damaging the structural integrity of the piece. Result, airbox gets a bit more air.

I'm still waiting for the BoxR to get here. 10 days and counting...

[929RRider]

Still waiting for the airbox

[thelayneman]

[929RRider]

OK, the BoxR finally arrived. After the initial inspection I'm not impressed. First of all, this thing is definately not intended to seal. It will take quite a bit of foil tape to seal this thing. Two other issues bother me; the first is the airbox volume. The amount of volume is much less than the stock airbox (measurements will come later). The other is the minimum cross sectional area of the intake tube, it comes in at 8.35 sq.in total. This is only marginally better than the stock snorkels' 7.49 sq.in. and far less than the 11.8 sq.in I have now with my custom intake.

There is some good in all of this. The filter fits rather well and definately flows better than stock (I have many years of experience with a flow bench) and the whole thing weighs a lot less.

Lots of pics to come aswell as a ride report and dyno.

[shakey1378]

cant wait to see the results! which i hope are good. i have no experience in anything flow bench related, is there any chance that with slightly larger tubes and a smaller overall volume it may increase intake velocity? ill be patiently waiting...

[929RRider]

Air velocity in the intake tube is not a good thing in all cases. In this case it's really bad because the intake tube feeds the airbox at an angle. This will probably make for uneven distribution of air. Also, the small airbox volume means I'm going to loose midrange, it also means that the air intake tube will likely flow less than the stock ones do with their smaller area.

[shakey1378]

that sucks, guess u may as well check it out though...

[929RRider]

OK... I installed this thing and have logged almost 100 miles on it. Conclusion: The BoxR is only better than the stock airbox in two departments. It weighs a few grams less and it sounds AMAZING. The intake honk is very nice, very much like Superflare Velocity Stacks. Also, like the Stacks your bike will be slower with it on your bike. I had to remove a few points of gas on the PC3r almost across the board to get the a/f ratio where I like it. Once I got it flat at around 12.9, I called my standard-of-comparison busa out to see the differences. This thing took me from a slight walk away to getting pulled on by twice as much. I knew it was going to be like this when I noticed that the front wheel wasn't skipping on the floor in third. I also lost a good bit of response and midrange.

It seems everything that makes my bike sound better makes me slower. That could be why Ducati's are so slow.

[thelayneman]

Thanks for being the guinnea pig.