For your viewing pleasure, a specially prepared, bespoke Allens Mikuni VM28-57 carburettor with a custom made, radiused air entry.
A generous radius helps to guide air into the carburettor entry, massively reducing turbulence and allowing the pressure drop caused by the engine to draw more air than it otherwise could. Due to production practicalities the carb manufacturers rarely put a particularly nice shape on the rear of the carb. This can be rectified, but a new piece has to be made, pressed on, holes filled, then turned, shaped and blended in. A lot of lumps and bumps that disturb airflow have been removed. In this case, the air hole for the cold start fast idle has been blocked up and smoothed over. A little compromise in the name of high performance.
An extra difficulty with modifying this type of carburettor is that the inside diameter of the carb is not concentric with the outside. This means more metal is removed from the top than the bottom. It’s very tricky to make sure there is still enough metal left in order to avoid the whole thing falling apart.
The front spigot has also been modified to fit a rubber that the customer provided.
A picture of the standard carb below is a great comparison:
