You actually CAN make the pods work but only under tight circumstances. The dominant one being the engine must be in top shape and where most of the mistakes are made, just having an engine that runs is not good enough, it must run REALLY well, like a new one. So many people now get one of these now almost 40 year old DOHC and then pop pods on and the problems begin, and then they go with the conventional wisdom that says you have to rejet up and then that makes it even worse, since yanking the airbox made the tune tilt toward rich to begin with.
A good engine will run well with pods, just no better than with the airbox, and the airbox will slightly run better in certain low rpm conditions where it gives more torque in quick on throttle conditions. Past that the pod setup will not pull out full max rpm, not wanting to run all the way out to the 9500 rpm redline in top gear, it will only pull to maybe 8000. Not a problem there though in the real world, how many times do you go there, it's over 110 mph............