So I guess that 1/4 turn in helped you out eh Octane? Nice! The problem with the Bandit 1250 is that even with the snorkel removed there is still not enough air getting into the airbox. You have to realize Suzuki, and for that matter all the bike manufacturers, are hobbling everything that comes out the door to try and meet the super strict regulations of the most strict market that they sell to.
For example motorcycles in Canada are totally exempt from any smog or emissions/global warming crap at all. If you could weld 2 Humvee engines and stick it on a motorcycle chassis somehow, you could have an open hole for the exhaust. However in Europe where they really bought into that global warming fraud, if it pumps out any more than a '70's 50cc 2-stroke there is problems. However Europe is a huge market(or used to be who knows now)for motorcycle sales so Suzuki and all the others play it safe and makes their bikes work for the toughest of the smog regulations, not how the bike should run.
So basically they kill off like 1/3 of the potential horsepower before it goes out the door. However they are not that dumb so they put all the parts on there so once it gets into the target country the owners can just fix it themselves. If they PERMANENTLY killed off the horsepower then there goes their motorcycle market. So basically its a phucked up game between the fraudsters, the government and the motorcycle manufacturers. I'm sure you guys all have had used bikes before, remember how large the air intake on those early eighties/late 70's bikes were like? They were all normal sized. Hell my last bike before this which is a SACS 750 engine, my '84 GS750EF had double the stock air intake than my Bandit 1200 with only slightly more than half the displacement. I had a Yosh exhaust on there and the previous owner did a jet kit and guess what? No extra holes in the Airbox because it was serviced by an appropriate air intake. The only thing next was Pods.
Really all this drilling the airbox is a symptom of the silliness the bike manufacturers are subjected to. For example in Octanes example the Next Generation of Bandit the 1250 is hobbled even MORE than the previous generation. You also look at in the specs. Even though the previous generation used a powerplant designed in the eighties and only has 5 gears not 6 it still beats the 1250 in 1/4 mile times stock for stock. That means even though the new Bandit has more displacement it's actually putting out less peak potential horsepower to the wheels, there is more torque however but all this is at a cost. Its also heavier which doesn't help.
With Dale from Holeshot's stage 2 which basically removes some of the back of the airbox he's getting another 22 horespower and removing the back of the airbox entirely, and killing the extra butterflies in the throttle bodies with a full system hes pumping out 32 horsepower, which is how every bike should be run really. Now if you look at the previous generation the with everything in the engine stock(no hot cams, etc) with a stage 2 and a full system you are getting a total potential horsepower of 19 over stock.
So now look at the 2 generations:
For this demonstration we will assuming they both are getting around 100 horsepower which isn't too far off.
GEN1/GEN2/GEN3:
Horsepower: 100
Total potential stock: +19
Total hobbling: %19
GEN4:
Horsepower: 100
Total potential stock: +32(WOW!)
Total hobbling: %32
As you can see as the restriction get tougher the total potential hobbling gets worse and worse. This demonstration is all stock except the breathing of the engine. Even my stage 1 kit which add about 13 horsepower has really only reduced the hobbling to 6%.
I remember back in the day people would boast about an extra 5 or 6 horsepower with their bikes. Were the engines that shit back in the day? No, they were less hobbled out of the factory.
Who knows maybe in the future we will have a Bandit 1500 putting out 20 horespower through a thimbal sized air intake. The only real way to ADD horsepower is through engine modification, hotter cams, porting, better pistons, etc. Really all these jet kits are doing is restoring the potential peak power of the engine as it came out of the factory. However, if Holeshot or Factory Pro advertised "13% less hobbling!!" no one would buy their jet kits so they claim they are "adding" horsepower which I guess technically is true but really your just fixing it to what it should have come out of the factory.
