I've been looking at the intake mods everyone's been posting, Most are basically a snorkel or just put a filter in the bed. NMK yours comes to mind here. Problem is snorkels are illegal here in Mine and the bed area often gets very wet so a filter there may not be wise. I've seen a couple that have simply routed the intake into the cab. My question is why aren't more people doing that. The answer I suspect is intake noise however there's one guy on YouTube that claimed it was quieter with it routed there. He also sealed off the intake grill so I'm sure that helped with engine and transmission noise some. Has anyone had any luck with that route. Same question with the CVT filter. My dealer hasn't mentioned that there is even one in there, is that filter an add on from the get go? I'd like to do some of these mods this winter while the trails are shut down anyway, well as long as there's enough time between snow storms at least. These things plow great.

[2015 Z Force 800 53/Trail EPS]

I've been looking at the intake mods everyone's been posting, Most are basically a snorkel or just put a filter in the bed. NMK yours comes to mind here. Problem is snorkels are illegal here in Mine and the bed area often gets very wet so a filter there may not be wise. I've seen a couple that have simply routed the intake into the cab. My question is why aren't more people doing that. The answer I suspect is intake noise however there's one guy on YouTube that claimed it was quieter with it routed there. He also sealed off the intake grill so I'm sure that helped with engine and transmission noise some. Has anyone had any luck with that route. Same question with the CVT filter. My dealer hasn't mentioned that there is even one in there, is that filter an add on from the get go? I'd like to do some of these mods this winter while the trails are shut down anyway, well as long as there's enough time between snow storms at least. These things plow great.

Speaking from personal experience, I don't think either the CVT exhaust or the engine intake make a lot of noise. And although one of my quests was to reduce cab noise, it was the combination of all the things I did that only reduced it to a level the wife and I could even talk to each other at all. So leaving then inside the cab probably wouldn't be a big deal. And the little OE filter pad that is in the CVT intake is from the factory and does very little. One of the things I was kicking around a while back was an idea that came up around the camp fire one night and that was to find a way to duct air from the front grill area through the center tunnel and split it to each intake. Would still get a little dust from people in front but not even close to what's behind the cab...and believe be, here in NM it's always a solid cloud behind the rear windshield. Even the way mine is now they ride in choking dust most all the time...especially on roads. Sometimes I can't get 15 miles before my CVT filter gets plugged enough to start the belt temperature climbing over 200. I'm currently looking again are that duct-ed intake or a particle separator...which with it and all the parts will be over 600 bucks. Tough nut to deal with. Good luck with whatever you do..just get that engine air intake out from where it is and get a Unifilter in the box at the very least.

I did put a uni filter in almost immediately. I'm hesitant to cut into the intake just yet for warranty reasons but I really need to do something. I have a filter wears pre filter over the uni filter so at least it's well filtered for now. I'll probably do something over the winter months. At least it's usually wet up here through a good deal of the spring. Dust won't be as much of issue for awhile now.

You'll find no better advice on the Z's than what NMK said above: Get that engine intake location away from where the manufacturer left it.
As supplied, the Z force draws combustion air from about the dirtiest and dustiest place on the machine, the compartment that houses the back tires! No matter how careful you try to be about distancing from co-riders there is nothing the operator can do on the stock Z Force to avoid the motor inhaling dust that's kicked up from his own back tires.

I had a taste of the kind of dust the man speaks of while I was on a holiday trip to Utah two years + ago, and in desperation to get cleaner air for the motor I cobbled up a field fix using duct tape and cardboard from a pizza box.
The goal was to make the motor draw its air only from inside the cab through the grill between the seats. This was accomplished by creating a box of the space behind the grill and using duct tape to form the box, hold its shape, and cover the open bottom by bridging the gap with more tape. This was meant as a stopgap measure but to be honest it has worked so well that even today I haven't bothered to update it.
I only need to clean the air filter (Uni) occasionally and it doesn't get such an awful cake of dust as it did before.

I don't care about cutting plastic if that is needed to accomplish a fix but in any case one nice point is that no cutting is needed. The box can be removed if you want without leaving any mark it was there except maybe duct tape adhesive residue.
That said I think it will work better if more holes are drilled into the standing intake plenum end, because the way it is stock, that little intake sock sucks up against the one 2" hole in the plenum's rear and this has the effect of the sock filtering only with that one small swept area and the rest of the sock doing nothing. More holes would reduce the air velocity of each additional hole and of the original, maybe letting the sock stay loose and filter with it's whole bag surface.

Now the motor gets all it's air solely from the interior of the cab, where I get my own breathing air.
Hope the photo illustrates it well enough.

ps. I couldn't detect any increase in sound level immediately after installing the fix when I had recent memory to compare with, in fact it may be lower as the sound ringing off the motor itself has a new barrier between the motor and the grill. 

Cut on solid lines, fold on dotted lines to form a box open on bottom. Tape along seams.

I like that idea. Seems as if that's what it should've been like in the first place.

I like that idea. Seems as if that's what it should've been like in the first place.

I have a belief that the intake tract WAS intended to draw air solely through the grill but something happened immediately before the rollout of the machines that would have caused delays and loss of face. Perhaps an entire run of proprietary connectors from intake plenum to grill were found at the last minute to be wrongly made and not useable, and managers panicked and told the engineers, "I don't care, just make it work so they can be introduced. We have deadlines to meet!"

The result is what we see, An intake pipe that's not connected to the intake grill but draws air from the compartment also housing the back tires. An ill fitting and hastily contrived sock was dragged over the end of the intake plenum which sock itself doesn't even seal closed but leaves a little open air triangle where it stretches over the mount bracket.  What engineer worth his paper would deliberately design such an abomination unless told to do, it with no time to do any but the crudest measure?

Now it's obvious that the company is just going to let it stay that way for the duration of the model run because to make it proper would reveal the jerry-rig and might open the door to innumerable complaints from owners with damaged motors from inhaling such abrasive laden air.
CF Moto are either saving face or saving money, perhaps both.
I think a decision was made to hide a supply line mistake with a short term fix, that someone decided to make permanent, that was poorly conceived and its retention disrespectful, even insulting to buyers of the Z Force. For shame.

CF Moto isn't doing anything but sticking their heads in the sand, so it's left to owners to come up with ways to protect their motors or suffer the consequences.

I like that idea. Seems as if that's what it should've been like in the first place.

I have a belief that the intake tract WAS intended to draw air solely through the grill but something happened immediately before the rollout of the machines that would have caused delays and loss of face. Perhaps an entire run of proprietary connectors from intake plenum to grill were found at the last minute to be wrongly made and not useable, and managers panicked and told the engineers, "I don't care, just make it work so they can be introduced. We have deadlines to meet!"

The result is what we see, An intake pipe that's not connected to the intake grill but draws air from the compartment also housing the back tires. An ill fitting and hastily contrived sock was dragged over the end of the intake plenum which sock itself doesn't even seal closed but leaves a little open air triangle where it stretches over the mount bracket.  What engineer worth his paper would deliberately design such an abomination unless told to do, it with no time to do any but the crudest measure?

Now it's obvious that the company is just going to let it stay that way for the duration of the model run because to make it proper would reveal the jerry-rig and might open the door to innumerable complaints from owners with damaged motors from inhaling such abrasive laden air.
CF Moto are either saving face or saving money, perhaps both.
I think a decision was made to hide a supply line mistake with a short term fix, that someone decided to make permanent, that was poorly conceived and its retention disrespectful, even insulting to buyers of the Z Force. For shame.

CF Moto isn't doing anything but sticking their heads in the sand, so it's left to owners to come up with ways to protect their motors or suffer the consequences.

Not at all bitter about it are we LOL. I picked up a few materials and I'm going to re route a tube into the cab with a small filter on it for now . Might get fancy later but this should be a decent quick fix

I have a 2019 z800 trail. I decided to check my air filter after reading NMK's posts. At 105 miles it was plugged solid. I changed to a UNI filter, and made a similar enclosure, (pizza box), out of flexible plastic, and sealed it with duct tape, around the intake between the seats, to force the air to come from the cabin area. I now only clean the filter every 500 miles, and it is not very dirty.

[2015 Z Force 800 53/Trail EPS]

I have a 2019 z800 trail. I decided to check my air filter after reading NMK's posts. At 105 miles it was plugged solid. I changed to a UNI filter, and made a similar enclosure, (pizza box), out of flexible plastic, and sealed it with duct tape, around the intake between the seats, to force the air to come from the cabin area. I now only clean the filter every 500 miles, and it is not very dirty.

Good. Your engine will thank you....especially out here where its almost always dusty as heck.

So I forgot to get pics of the process but it was pretty simple really. Just block off the hole and make a new one on the front side. Drill a hole in the grill and tape off the rest with aluminum heat tape. Pipe a piece of pvc into the cab. I did get a couple finished shots that I attached.  I used a 2 part epoxy to seal everything up on the intake tube. Works pretty good so far.

Atta boi! Looks good. 

Odey1979 , where did you find that air filter? I just got the 18 z800 trail and was thinking about doing this but from the top if there's room... Still learning

[2015 Z Force 800 53/Trail EPS]

Pretty sure its way too small...needs to flow at max 218.95 CF per Minute...and that one's not going to do it.

I'll keep following this. Not ready to do anything yet especially since I just got it yesterday 😉 Thanks for all the ideas and help!

Odey1979 , where did you find that air filter? I just got the 18 z800 trail and was thinking about doing this but from the top if there's room... Still learning

Found it on Amazon. It's a piece of crap but at least it keeps big things like keys watches and whatever else my wife decides to wear in the trail from getting sucked in.