So, I've been pondering the idea of making an ram air ducting for my cane. My question is has anyone here attempted such a feat?

 

ram air negatively affects the hurricanes. some people without a front fairing have to partialy block the intake holes on the frame because the ram air effect causes the bike to run poorly.

 

True ram air is difficult to make work. Hurricanes seem to be fairly sensitive to this. I have seen other posts where people have tried and it caused the engine to be difficult to tune. Aerodynamics also come into play as certain speeds can cause a vacuum to form on the ram air intake starving the engine of air or cause turbulance which leads to sever surging.

What Tripicana said is true regarding having to block (partially or fully) the frame holes when you remove the fairings. At higher speeds you end up with a rich condition. You can also trim back the rubber intake hoses so they don't seal against the frame.

If you go ahead with this just do your research and post your progress here so we can all learn.

KongBastard

 

I appreciate both of your inputs and will have take that into consideration before I continue with this thought. I was wonderig about the affects this would have on the cane with tuning, but if I have the time might attempt to make it work.

 

Engineering a vehicle of any sort takes a lot of money, time, and knowledge. This is why giving a bike more HP takes thousands of dollars and professional work. You will be very disappointed if you decide to screw around with the air box or intake unless you possess such knowledge and a fat wallet. I don't mean to sound rude, but seriously, unless you own a honda factory with all their testing equipment, and understand engineering like they do, there is a slim chance you will do anything positive to the bike.

 

Your idea of putting ram air on the hurricane was tried by racers back in the eighties. They removed the signal lights and ran tubes to the air box. It wasn't successful. There were more gains to be had from an aftermarket exhaust and air filter. With the fairing in place the full coverage bodywork forces a slight increase in pressure at the air box anyways.
There are some old pics of Doug Polen racing a hurricane and you can see the tubes in it. Good Luck with your experiments!

 

You would probably need to have the carbs tuned for it. I see people put turbos on anything from mowers to bikes to cars with carbs, so I don't see why a ram air set up wouldn't work with some good tuning. But there again airfilter technology has come along way since these bikes were first designed. I don't think you would see much gain from ram air for all the work you would have to do. Like someone said before a good filter and exhaust would probably do just as well, maybe even a jet kit.