Air intake relocation

The Honda intake is a horrible design, that takes dirty air from the right rear and can clog your air filter. There are a bunch of posts, I'll put some in below. The short story is the cheapest way to fix it is remove the Honda intake before the air filter plenum, install a snorkel kit and put a filter on top.

The other way is to purchase a particle separator like KWT or S&B. Here are few, there are more.

Before I even rode it for the first time I installed a KWT pre-filter due to comments I had seen in the forums. I have over a thousand miles on my stock air filter right now.

In Post #2 above, I gave a word description of how I switched the air inlet to the side grate behind the passenger roll bar. This was a two part problem - first is sealing all the openings to the snorkel other than the side grate. Where possible, I inserted metal pieces fastened with sealer/caulk. The idea was to still be able to remove the fender liner without breaking adhesive joints. First was to seal the lower front of the fender liner.

The curved part butts up to the roll cage tube when installed. Next was a piece to enclose the remainder of the roll cage tube. It was glued to the front and side of the roll cage tube. You could possibly use expanding foam insulation here. The key is to seal off around the roll cage tube where the bottom of the fender liner mates up to the roll tube.

Another big dirt inlet is the flared area right behind the passenger door. One opening is already sealed. The other got the following part.

The area where this goes has surfaces going every which way. The down side in the photo goes forward.
Another major inlet when the fender liner is installed is around the passenger seat belt retractor. Narrow side is glued to the back of the cockpit below the retractor. It is bent to seal against the fender liner when liner is installed.

Near the center of the seat back is a 1/2" wide, 10" long gap between the fender liner. I did not find a good solution for this. When the fender liner was installed, I reached through the side grate opening and installed Gorilla tape to bridge the gap. There is also a gap running front to back where the fender liner meets the fender. This got tape also.

There is a gap in the back of the fender liner where there is a cutout for the tail light wiring. Also several gaps between the liner and the fender. These were all closed with Gorilla tape which nicely matched the fender liner cover.

In each of these leak sources, the better you match your metal piece or tape, the better the outcome.

Good Luck!

In Post #5 i got the machine sealed up where the only air intake path is through the side grate behind the passenger. Having accomplished that, next was to make a frame to hold a piece of Uni Foam. Below is the Filter Back. It's made of some wire shelving material I had. I cut a number of cardboard templates to find the shape that would most completely fill the available area. It is inserted under the fender after loosening 4 bolts.

I added a small metal L bracket which fastened to the fender liner and kept the filter back in place. The studs go through aluminum flat pieces and are loctited. They serve two purposes - they help to locate the foam when installing it and give a way to hold the filter front (shown below).

I cut a piece of Uni foam to overlap the filter back to make the best seal possible against the fender, the fender liner, and the back of the passenger seat. I used Coarse foam in case it wanted to plug up. It didn't in nearly 1000 miles of riding in AZ fine dust, so a finer foam should be fine. I oiled it with Filter Oil.

The filter front is held in place by two aluminum brackets and locking wingnuts. The filter front and the foam are easily removed through the side grate.

I chose this approach because it did not alter the vehicle exterior for resale purposes. Particle filters and snorkels would likely work better, but not everyone likes the appearance.