What is "airbox"

n. (context informal English) The chamber in a car or motorcycle engine that draws in air and distributes it to the carburettors.

An airbox is an empty chamber on the inlet of most combustion engines. It collects air from outside and feeds it to the intake hoses of each cylinder.

Older engines drew air directly from the surroundings into each individual carburetor. Modern engines instead draw air into an airbox, which is connected by individual hoses to each carburetor or directly to the intake ports in fuel-injected engines, thus avoiding an extra intake manifold.

The airbox allows the use of one air filter instead of many. Developments arising from concerns about environmental effects during the late 1970s allow the airbox to collect pump gases from the crankcase and the tank air vent and re-feed them to the engine.