Should I restore without the log file? I need to restore a SQL Server database with/without the log file. This is for a reporting system. When I restore the log file it is sometimes 8x larger than the data file. I am restoring this once a week for a reporting system that will not need to be restored (if it fails I will restore it from the OLTP system).

Is there any reason I should just restore it without the log and keep the recovery model simple so the log file does not grow too much?

On the source the log file is not being backed up. A different group is managing that system.
Community wiki answer:

You can't restore without creating the log file that was there when the database was backed up, so no.

It makes sense to have the reporting system in simple recovery (and perhaps even in read only) but in order for that log file to be smaller than the production system (assuming it doesn't fit there and you can't restore the big log file and shrink it), you'll have to restore it somewhere else first, shrink the log file there, and take another backup.