which air cleaner best to put underneath stock cover?
 

Hi everybody,

now, finally, my 1200N has been delivered and I am quite happy with it. But as most of you probably know, it is aftermarket season now!
I already ordered forward controls, exhaust wrap and a few other accessories, but what I am looking for now is an air cleaner kit. The one that has caught my eye is the Vance & Hines Naked VO2 Air Intake. They advertise it with stock look, but (obviously) not stock performance, but still they claim it will not fit under the stock HD air cleaner cover. I won't ask why or why not, rather I am interested if anybody came up with a fix to that problem yet, some kind of adapter or so. And even though I think the V&H air cleaner looks really cool, I am kinda stuck with the stock cover, cause police over here is really picky and they know their crap, so whenever they see something unusual, they will pull you over and consequently fine you...

On another note, I have also seen the K&N hi performance air filter which does fit the stock air cleaner cover. But that does not come as entire kit, i.e. with a new backplate. And I thought (please correct me) this was almost as important when improving performance as the filter itself? And what about Screamin' Eagles Stage I air cleaner? Is it comparable to the K&N? It comes with a backplate at least...

Anyways, if you have any good ideas how I could get a hi intake air filter underneath the stock nightster air cleaner cover, please share them, I am dying to know!

thanks in advance, have a good one, Ben

"Aftermarket season" ROTFLMAO I love fair weather riders..........
To answer your question K&N

That is if you are going for filter replacement only. K&N just allows the bike to breath better then everything else I've heard of. I have a lot of friends that have tried different things and the ones that notice a true difference always have K&N. Hope it helps and please don't take offense to the fair weather rider comment and if you do well maybe you should go for a sub 30 degree ride.................
Good luck with the bike!

I'm with you, I like the look of the stock air cleaner cover, but wanted better performance. I ordered the Screamin Eagle Stage 1 air cleaner kit, which like you mentioned comes with a different backing plate. The air filter element that comes with it though, was not what I wanted. I found a K&N replacement for the filter element on amazon.com. Search for K&N HD-0900 High Performance replacement air filter. It replaces the filter element from the Screamin Eagle kit perfectly. You may have to add a tuner (Power Commander etc.) if you add a free flowing intake.

you need to do a search on K&n website , they do have a high performance kit that includes a new backplate and velocity stack with the high flow filter element that go under the stock ham can a/c cover . they are also found on ebay. you can add spacers to the stock cover so it sits a bit farther out and exposes more filter to the air stream. there are many options . do a search on this forum for air cleaner or air filter lots of good info here

The K&N HD 8834 is supposed to be a replacement for the OE element. Haven't tried it yet but plan to.

Nothing breathes and filters to a lower micron level better than K&N. At least nothing that doesn't cost $$$$$$$$$ and isn't readily available off the shelf.

KKKKKKKKKKKK&NNNNNNNNNNNNN! I just Had to be different!:D

@DvlDogBkr: no offense taken for the fair weather rider, which admittedly I try to be, but not without my fair share of foul weather. But: what I meant with aftermarket season referred more to the fact that I finally got the bike than the actual time of the year. It's always aftermarket season... :-)

@all: the power commander is on the list too, but there I didn't have questions, since that thing is unrivalled (imho). I too thought about that screaming eagle backplate - k&n filter combination, if only in terms of pricing. cause the entire k&n kit (which I by now discovered exists indeed) costs a whopping 240 (cheapest I can find, unless you count those with the homemade backplates too) as compared to 110 for the screaming eagle kit. but the backplate will definitely have to be changed, almost pointless without... does anybody have a comparison regarding the SE and the k&n backplates? which has the larger intake hole?

thanks for the valuable comments, niv

Just sticking a K&N filter in the stock can doesn't do much for performance, as you still have the restricted can assembly.

If you want performance and keep the "Ham Can" cover, try this from NRHS Performance.