Are all Ram Air designs the same?

Is suzuki's ram air design that much different from Kawasaki's. How bout the placement of the ram air inducts? Patent related ? how much of the design of the bike is based around the placement of the ram air intakes? From a cosmetic standpoint, do you like how it looks ?

I think the design ideas are basically the same!! It is suppose to provide a straight thru shot to the airbox!!! I like them on most bikes... on my 9R, they are kinda inconspiculous (sp?), which is fine. But I like them on most bikes...

I haven't seen anything recently, but I vaguely remember Sportrider (?) doing a comparison of ram air systems that included measuring air box pressures as an indicator of how efficient each system was. The interesting thing was how some of the systems showed pressure fluctuations related to cylinder intake strokes. IIRC, the Kawasaki was the best at reducing those fluctuations giving a smooth graph on air box pressure. I think the Kawi also had the highest overall pressures at speed. Now, that was several years ago and most of the companies have made some major changes to their ram air systems since then. I don't know if there has been a comparison done recently. Larry

That's cause Kaw's ROCK!!!

who had the ram air first, Kawasaki or Suzuki ? I think it was kawasaki but im not sure, and its too late to look it up.. ;)

who had the ram air first, Kawasaki or Suzuki ? I think it was kawasaki but im not sure, and its too late to look it up.. ;) It doesn't matter how had it first. They work and thats all that matters. :D

who had the ram air first, Kawasaki or Suzuki ? I think it was kawasaki but im not sure, and its too late to look it up.. ;) IIRC, Kawasaki started it with the ZX11C in '90 or '91. It may have been on the ZX7R but the early one with the tubes going into the top of the tank wasn't a true ram-air. I don't think Suzuki had ram-air until '96 or '97 with the GSXR750 (SRAD = Suzuki Ram Air Direct), but I could be wrong. Larry

IIRC, Kawasaki started it with the ZX11C in '90 or '91. It may have been on the ZX7R but the early one with the tubes going into the top of the tank wasn't a true ram-air. I don't think Suzuki had ram-air until '96 or '97 with the GSXR750 (SRAD = Suzuki Ram Air Direct), but I could be wrong. Larry thats what I thought about the SRAD as well.. thanks man! :thumbs:

Cale from WOS found this and it's a good read... Ram Air Tests (http://sportrider.com/tech/146_9910_ram/) More testing (http://sportrider.com/tech/146_9912_ram/) Glad to see that Kawasaki knows what they're doin it!! :dthumb: :twfrox: Plus this is another Tiger bounce on the thread!!! See how that works Bull!

Air is a compressible fluid and increased compression and air flow into the motorcycle engine is what a ram-air induction system is attempting to do. However, air behaves more like an incompressible fluid at speeds less than Mach 0.3. At standard temperatures and pressures on the earth’s surface, the speed of sound is 768 miles per hour. So an air velocity greater than 230 mph would be required to begin to observe air compression in an air intake duct. To accomplish this in a ram air system requires that the air intake duct be tapered down to a smaller diameter to increase the velocity of the airflow to be greater than Mach 0.3 into the engine. This is similar to the intake of a jet engine and the design of these type ducts is highly dependent on the inlet pressure of the engine and the ram air compression at 12 to 14 thousand RPM for a YAMAHA YZF-R6 bike where they measured a 5 horsepower increase using the ram-air system. Also, compressing air increases its temperature, and this changes the Mach number as the air passes through the various stages of the intake system making the design problem even more complex. If you have read this far you are a nerd.

r1sharknose you got too much time on ur hands. lol but all ram air is the same. i know kawi has a splitter right b4 the air box so that all the air does not go down the middle intakes. this is one of the biggest problems with intakes even on cars, you need to find a way to get the air spread evenly over all cylinders. plus the new kawis have a more striaght though ram air, it goes directly to the air box, there ar no bends or corners like the gixxers or yamahas. dont know if that makes a differenct though. and plus r1sharknose pointed out somethign like you have to be going at a descent speed to actually gain anything from ram air.

This is why my 9R has 2 seperate ram air tubes... they never connect other than on the air box! That's it!! 2 ram air tubes and 2 intake tubes into the air box....