[reddoak]

Or the lazy way, if you don't approve. First of all, there are terrific guides already, they can be found here: Kawasaki Ninja 650 Motorcycles

The PAIR valve and sub-throttle plate removal guides are the ones I used as reference material. I highly recommend you take a look, and use my little bit-o-info as an addendum.

Anyways, here goes:
1. Remove the tank! Did you look at the guides I mentioned, yet? Now is a good time to take a look... My 09, sold new in Florida, had the California evap hoses. So... be aware they might be there on yours, too. They are all but impossible to take off. I took one off (the one with no markings), then I put a big box next to my bike and put the tank on it, evap hoses still attached and all.

2. Pull the hose off the airbox access cover. Just one side, really. The one to the rear of the bike. Look at the hose. Look inside it... it needs to be plugged... what works well... Marbles! Really, get a glass marble. Walmart has them in the decor section. Look around near fake plants, they sell them to fill vases and such. Mine looked like this:

Basically, just jam it in the tube. Sounds a bit harsh, but that's the way she likes it. Like many things, this is accomplished easier with a bit of lube. I unscrewed the oil fill cap, rubbed a clean finger on it to get a very small amount of oil, and fingered the hole first. Easier that way, the marble slides right in there, and you can work it up a ways. Looks like a snake that just ate a mouse:

3. Now, if you want to de-snorkulate, you have a golden opportunity to do this fairly easily at this point. Remove the air filter (one screw) and slide it out. Remove the airbox access hatch (or whatever Kawi refers to it as) by taking out the four screws. DO NOT DROP ANY SCREWS IN THE AIRBOX!!!! Really, just don't.

4. Violate the airbox with your hand:

Pull out those pesky rubber baffles. You can reach around (heh, heh) the turn signal blobs and push them to help. Make sure you're pulling out the rubber baffles, and not breaking the hard velocity stacks over the throttle bodies. The rubber baffles are toward the front of the bike. Here's a shot halfway through:

and here's what you get for your effort:

Mmmm... baffles....

5. Put it all back together: Make sure you put the airbox hatch and air filter back before re-installing the tank!


What's it all do:
1. The bike doesn't after-fire when I decelerate in gear. (No more popping.)
2. The bike has a nice growly intake sound (you either know what I mean, or you don't) when I open up the throttle. Eventually, the exhaust drowns it out, but it sounds very nice from 4-6k!
3. Your experience may very, but my bike was a bit choppy at cruising around 4-5k at partial throttle. Just a bit uneven in the power delivery, it was more pronounced after I installed the slip on exhaust. It seems to be mostly gone, now. Unexpected benefit, but I'll take it!
4. More power? Maybe. My butt dyno reports very similar power under full throttle as before the de-snork... and before the slip on. Odds are, there is a small, but measurable increase, but it's not huge. If there is any, it's likely in the 4-8k range, where the bike pulls pretty well anyway.


I expected less noise on decel, and more under acceleration, and that's what I got! Win!

 

[KingnakeD]

i see you track your mpgs so do you think these mods will affect it? i'm loving the idea of simple cheap mods that actually make a small diff.

 

[Rangerscott]

I'm hesitant to remove the PAIR system on any bike that has a cat (stock muffler) since it helps keeps things clean to an aspect of "clean" is in an exhaust system. Luckily on this bike if the cat gets clogged you just have to swap mufflers. On my VFR the two cat combs are built into the headers. Of course I could just cut them out since the O2 sensors are before the cat but we've found very little difference in performance with headers with and without the cat so mine will stay until their time runs out.

 

[reddoak]

i see you track your mpgs so do you think these mods will affect it? i'm loving the idea of simple cheap mods that actually make a small diff.

Well... I'm sure my mileage will change short term. The bike sounds pretty nice when you open it up, which means I'll probably crack the throttle hard every chance I get... Which will down my MPG!

Overall, I don't expect much difference. But I will keep an eye on it, too.

 

[TonyBKK]

I'm hesitant to remove the PAIR system on any bike that has a cat (stock muffler) since it helps keeps things clean to an aspect of "clean" is in an exhaust system. Luckily on this bike if the cat gets clogged you just have to swap mufflers. On my VFR the two cat combs are built into the headers. Of course I could just cut them out since the O2 sensors are before the cat but we've found very little difference in performance with headers with and without the cat so mine will stay until their time runs out.

If you are running stock exhaust there is no reason to plug the pair valve. It's not a performance mod- it simply helps to eliminate air from the exhaust and reduce backfiring (after-firing) on bikes with aftermarket exhausts.

You can do it ghetto style with a marble and some lube or you can go buy some cheap silicone vacuum caps and plug the valve properly-

Ride On!

Tony

 

[reddoak]

The main advantage of the marble method over the cap method is that you can just pop the marble out if you ever need to go back to stock. The hose is still there, it's just blocked. Honestly though, I bet I could find silicone caps faster than a marble... No one plays marbles anymore. They've become "decorations."

The first time I saw a marble used was on a Kawi Mean Streak. That bike didn't pop on decel, it exploded...It sounded literally like gunshots. One marble later, no more. Anyway, my friend had 3 pounds of marbles (-1 marble) left over, so he donated one to me.

Anyways, the popping wasn't too bad, my 250 with a 2 Bros was considerably worse, but it's a pretty easy mod, and I was pulling the snorkles out so I was there anyways. If the cap method was actually better in some meaningful way, I'd pull the tube out and cap them the next time I'm under the tank. However, since the popping has stopped, mission accomplished! Perhaps when I change plugs I'll pull out the sub-throttle plate.

Both the guides in the link I posted use caps. They work well, and plenty of people have successfully used them to plug the system. This is just an alternative.

 

[Arki Ninja 650R]

i still have the bangin even though i plugged them snorkles... i have the two bros pipes...

 

[reddoak]

i still have the bangin even though i plugged them snorkles... i have the two bros pipes...

Hopefully you didn't plug the snorkles. It'll run way rich, unless it just stalls from lack of air at that point.

Did you plug just the hose, or all the connections? Just curious. Mine seems to give a little pop every now and again, but nowhere near like it did before. I beleive Tony runs the 2 Bros. pipe, that one might just be more prone to noise, I had one on my 250, and it was pretty loud. Nice, but loud.

 

[hiswitsend]

1. The bike doesn't after-fire when I decelerate in gear. (No more popping.)
2. The bike has a nice growly intake sound (you either know what I mean, or you don't) when I open up the throttle. Eventually, the exhaust drowns it out, but it sounds very nice from 4-6k!
3. Your experience may very, but my bike was a bit choppy at cruising around 4-5k at partial throttle. Just a bit uneven in the power delivery, it was more pronounced after I installed the slip on exhaust. It seems to be mostly gone, now. Unexpected benefit, but I'll take it!

Just carried the snorkel mod out on my UK 07 ER6F that has an MCT exhaust fitted and I noticed the engine has been smoothed out a fair bit at lower revs with the pulsing gone.

Will be keeping an eye on my commuting MPG as I try out some other mods, but just got 185 miles to the fuel light coming on

 

[QFez]

I just choked on some eggs because I was laughing as I read this. Now everyone in the restraunt is staring at me :x

 

[kyl18b]

I noticed this second red cap on your picture...

When I completed this mod today, I didn't see/notice that other area you plugged (hence, it didn't get plugged, of course). Is this bad? What is it's purpose? Is it completely necessary that it gets plugged?

 

[Rangerscott]

I noticed this second red cap on your picture...

When I completed this mod today, I didn't see/notice that other area you plugged (hence, it didn't get plugged, of course). Is this bad? What is it's purpose? Is it completely necessary that it gets plugged?

It has to have two ports. Where who the air go with only one port? See what Im saying?

Both ports on the solenoid, valve cover port, and port on top of air filter box need to be plugged.

 

[kyl18b]

It has to have two ports. Where who the air go with only one port? See what Im saying?

Both ports on the solenoid, valve cover port, and port on top of air filter box need to be plugged.

Not really sure... are you saying that the one I circled is the inlet port for the air, and wasn't routed elsewhere in the first place? The three HAVE to be plugged? Why wasn't this one plugged earlier in the original post when he only plugged the two with the marble and disregarded the one that was circled?

I'm not being argumentative by any means, just want to make sure it's done right, and not gonna blow up on me lol

 

[TonyBKK]

Not really sure... are you saying that the one I circled is the inlet port for the air, and wasn't routed elsewhere in the first place? The three HAVE to be plugged? Why wasn't this one plugged earlier in the original post when he only plugged the two with the marble and disregarded the one that was circled?

I'm not being argumentative by any means, just want to make sure it's done right, and not gonna blow up on me lol

It's not gonna blow up on you :Laughing rolling:

When I do something I like to do it right, so I plug both sides of the valve plus the air box and the exhaust intake. Some guys remove the valve altogether. Up to you bro.

 

[kyl18b]

It's not gonna blow up on you :Laughing rolling:

When I do something I like to do it right, so I plug both sides of the valve plus the air box and the exhaust intake. Some guys remove the valve altogether. Up to you bro.

Haha alright, I guess that solves it then. I'm heading out tomorrow to buy another hose end cap and tearing the bike apart again. :woot:

 

[reddoak]

For what it's worth, I've got a power Commander on the way. Since I'm pulling off the airbox anyway, I'll plug the valves completely when I do. The marble was a quick and easy option, but if you're going to tear into it, why not finish it all the way?

 

[sixt3denied]

Tony - i may be wrong but i thought that if you remove the valve all-together the FI light will come on. No?

 

[kyl18b]

Now here's the real question then... the other one that "needs" to be plugged has another hose that attaches to a metal end on the engine. Does that metal end need to be plugged too? There are four plugs all together? We need a better DIY I think.

 

[TonyBKK]

Tony - i may be wrong but i thought that if you remove the valve all-together the FI light will come on. No?

Yep, if you want to remove the valve altogether you'll need to wire in a resistor to avoid the FI warning light.

 

[TonyBKK]

Now here's the real question then... the other one that "needs" to be plugged has another hose that attaches to a metal end on the engine. Does that metal end need to be plugged too? There are four plugs all together? We need a better DIY I think.

Der, it ain't rocket science- look at the pics:

Monkey see, monkey do, job done