Report on K&N Filters

[DGShannon_imp]

Discussing, not arguing......

We have 1600 members or at least people who have joined. Lets say 10% of those don't have a CB but want one. Lets say the other 90% have purchased a CB. You are looking at 1440 CB owners. Of the 1440 you think more than 770 have made a performance change like pipe or PCV? ( often the first 2 performance mods right?

My figure at 5% would be 72. That may be a little low, but I'm betting of the 1440 there are no more than 150 who have modded their bike the a power commander or pipe. Performance mods are usually a young guys thing 18-30 year olds and this is an old guys bike.

When we did the age survey something like 85% of owners were between 47 and 70. Hardly the group to be performance modding. Many in the age group to buy a CB 1100 have no idea what a PCV does, or where it goes, or how to program it for that matter. They would understand a pipe, but Honda saw fit to include a sexy 4 into 1 on the 13's and beautiful chrome 4 into 2s on the 14 dlx. If Honda would have made their pipes louder from the factory I bet less than 1% would spend $1000-$1500 on a pipe just to gain 3 or 4 hp.

Like has been said many times before, this isn't the bike for performance enthusiasts. Those looking for more power, in any substantial amount, would benefit from looking at other bikes. Heck from what I have seen, with a pipe, a PCV and a reflash the 3 owners who have done this I can think of ( maybe you know of more?) are still barely breaking the 90 hp barrier. About a 6 HP gain according to dyno charts I have seen. Hardly worth the expense and effort, when you can walk into any of the big 4 Japanese bike shops, plop down similar money that was paid for a CB 1100 and walk out with between 140 and 160 HP.

I'm betting more of our members have bought comfort items (seat, windshield) than have bought performance items. Having said that, I still believe the CB 1100 can be made to run better, stronger than it came from the factory for the reasons you mentioned..federally mandated epa stuff. How much better, or if the effort is worth the expense has yet to be seen.

Agree from the standpoint of the EPA stuff. I think that the extremely talented Honda engineers did the absolute best they could in light of the mandates and requirements they had to meet. For me, there are certain mods, such as the PCV, where you are just trying to undo the mandate handcuffs, and get the bike back to what the engineers designed as the best base before they had to cripple it with the mandates.

As I ponder the CB1100, it seems that the PCV, or ECU flash, to remove the overly lean fuel injection settings is a sound bet. Other items discussed (pipes, air filter, intake mods, etc.) may not be.