Stebel Nautilus Compact install

[Guest GPM]

There are a few Stebel install guides out now, but most of those require putting the horn in a place that causes some serious reduction in effectiveness, or requires some serious fabbing (ie. requires more than muscles and a hammer!). I personally didn't like either of those options, so I decided to hunt down a convenient location that allowed the horn to... umm... bellow, and meant I could mount it cheaply and easily.

The location:

Those with Cali models (ie. our USA friends) will know they have this annoying canister sitting behind their front headers, right in front of the starter. As it so happens, this canister is taking up valuable Stebel real estate. For us non-Cali model riders, there is no canister (yay!), but Honda kindly left behind the mounting points, obviously foreseeing its convenience.

The home of Stebel

So if you want to mount the horn down here, and you have an Evap canister, you will need to remove it. You will find information elsewhere on the advantages of doing this (apart from the extra space), as well as exactly how you do it (as I do not know what you will need to plug up because of it).

Now this location is pretty much perfect for the Stebel - it fits snugly just on the inside of the fairings, the horns opening projects towards the opposite side (right side) of the bike, so it is not blasting straight into a solid wall (the fairings, like on many other install locations), but it also isn’t having dirt/mud kicked straight into it off the road as it would if it was pointing straight ahead down there. Down there it also does not interfere with any other part of the bike, so you don't have to worry about the front fender smashing into it like you would if you installed the Stebel in the OEM horns location. You are also able to keep the horn vertical (as specified in the instructions that come with it) which is supposed to help considerably with the longevity.

The only downside is the close proximity to the headers, but if you position it properly you should be able to get enough clearance that it isn't an issue. After about 2000km I haven't had any touching or melting yet!

Header clearance

ps. dirt on the horn is after I took my VFR on a faux rally ride - considering what the mud did to the rest of my bike it is pretty much spotless.

Installing/positioning the horn

Carefully read the instructions that the horn comes with. You need to keep in mind how you are going to wire the horn up (I have mine triggered by the OEM horn using the supplied relay). Physically locating the horn involves putting together a bracket of some sort to attach it to the body of the bike, then literally bolting it on.

My hand crafted Stebel bracket - literally bent and shaped by hand. My mounting system set me back a total of $3 including steel and bolt/nut

I went to my local hardware store and got me a strip of make-your-own bracketing steel, which looks exactly like what it looks in that picture (only flat). Cheap, strong, and can be easily bent to fit the Stebel - perfect. I also picked up a suitable bolt+nut to fit through the Evap canister mounting point that is located just above the oil cooler pipe.

I spent a bit of time measuring everything up, end had to drill the bracket holes out a little to fit the bolts. I placed my Stebel at the 6th 'hole' from the top of the bracket. I also made up two brackets, one to go on either side of the oil cooler pipe - I did this to give the whole thing more rigidity and stop the horn swinging around from vibrations and bumps in the road. I left the outer bracket longer then the inner one, and bent it to fit around the underside of the horn to make it in ever more snug in its bracket (though the screw should be enough to hold it in place). The red tape you see on the bottom half of the outer bracket is for any fairing rubbing that may happen (though there are no friction marks on it, I figure it's a good, cheap bit of protection).

Once you have the bracket made, bolt it to the bike, then bolt the horn on nice and tight. You may need to make a few hand adjustments to the bracket, but it should end up securely around the oil cooler. This will place the horn perfectly with respect to the fairings and the headers.

Installing the relay/wiring

Wiring is pretty straight forward, follow the provided instructions. Make sure you use good quality wiring and crimp/solder your connectors properly. I also used some heatshrink tubing and electrical tape to protect the more vulnerably routed wires. I mismeasured my ground wire for the horn, so instead of my original plan of routing the wires to the back of the radiator, then up to and follow the harness, I have it heading straight up behind the radiator. I was worried about heat melting the shielding, but it has lived fine so far, all good!

I have my setup include a switch for enabling the Stebel, the idea being that if I want to get someone’s attention when they are standing close by (ie. not use the horn in anger) I could switch it off and just use the OEM horn. This has been useful in carparks, service stations and for just letting friends know to move off in group rides. It also means that if something happens to the horn, I can just cut the power until I get back home and can take a proper look. My switch is mounted in the dashboard surround (along with a switch for my PCV). The wires just snake behind the inner black cowling, and hook straight into the relay/main wire.

The Stebel switch

Finding a place for the relay to live was also very simple. The provided relay (which is probably nothing fantastic, but it does the job well enough) fits perfects behind the hard-brake line on the right hand side. Just slip the bolt out, position the relay behind, rethread the bolt and tighten. Perfect! Sitting here the relay doesn't impact on the movement of the forks/lines, is reasonably protected from the weather, is out of the way of road grim/mud, but is still accessible for a quick unplug (if you don't have a switch).

Perfect little spot for the relay

The relay from the underside

Some tips for the wiring - make sure you put a fuse inline between the battery and the relay! I was going to hook it up to my VFRness aux fuse box, but the horn is rated at more than 15amps, so I decided rather then risk my fuses, I would just put a 20amp inline and hook directly to the battery. The fuse I placed under the seat near the battery (so it's easy to access). For the trigger I put a piggyback spade connector on the wire leading to the relay input, and then hooked that up to the OEM battery with the OEM battery line attaching to piggyback spade. This meant no cutting or splicing the OEM setup, and the OEM horn still has a go too (though it is easily drowned out by the Stebel!). Finally, use dielectric grease on your connectors! Everything is exposed to the elements, so it's cheap insurance for your wiring.

Once everything is hooked up, be sure to take the bike out to a nice open space to test the horn. Speaking from experience Stebels and enclosed spaces (like a garage) don't mix so well.

And now, some more pictures to help inspire/explain (as they are worth 1000 words or so).

It is hard to get good shots that capture the entire setup, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask. Hopefully this will help anyone with a Stebel sitting around waiting to be installed, or any of you wanting to purchase something to put the fright into errant cage drivers!

Edited May 22, 2010 by GPM

[Guest vfrrider]

Heat problems?

Larry

VFRrider

[VFR Capt.Bob]

meep meep!

[Serenity_VFR]

Fits just fine right in front of the radiator. The bracket is just a bit of 1" x 3/16 aluminum flat stock (easier to work with and is rust-proof and better looking IMHO than that corrigated steel plumbing stuff you used) and goes between the existing fairing mount holes. The bolt on the bottom of the bracket is not in because the black faring part receives it usually so I just threw a bit of safety wire in there while I was working on it (and doing a couple of test rides.

Of course my way requires that the silly inside black plastic pieces be thrown away -but it also is part of my program to remove all those plastic junk push-pin connectors and replace them with the same fasteners that hold the fairing on everywhere else.

I put the R/R on another bracket on the other side where it can get cooler and moving air and never gets so warm that you can't touch it.

The Bracket is made of similar aluminum flat-stock but it's just twice as wide. You can buy this stuff at just about any home store for something like $5-6 for a 4-foot piece. I use that stuff all over to fabricate brackets.

Like for my LED gauge -although this extreme close-up shows that I got a bit lazy and didn't sand out all the tool marks on this one. :biggrin:

[Beck]

GPM, that low location next to the headers does not look to be a good idea because it's like the harshest environment you can find on a bike. Those header pipes get hot enough to actually glow red hot in the night and it could spell disaster for the plastic material the horn body is made of, That area also get the most rain splash, moisture and muck from the road kicked up from the wheel. The higher and cooler place on the bike you can find the better it would be for the life of the horn.

Beck

95 VFR

[Guest GPM]

Fits just fine right in front of the radiator.

On the 5th gen, sure, on the 6th gen, it’s competing for space with the ECU - I don't think the horn will win that one.

You can fit it in a similar place on the left side on the 6th gens, but it's tight and tricky (if you take your time and cut out a nice bracket for it, it is possible). But this removes a rather convenient storage place for sensitive things and I am not sure if it is available on the ABS model. It also has most of the plastics between the horn and the outside world, which will have an impact on the loudness. Of course, that problem is almost unavoidable, but can be minimised.

GPM, that low location next to the headers does not look to be a good idea because it's like the harshest environment you can find on a bike. Those header pipes get hot enough to actually glow red hot in the night and it could spell disaster for the plastic material the horn body is made of, That area also get the most rain splash, moisture and muck from the road kicked up from the wheel. The higher and cooler place on the bike you can find the better it would be for the life of the horn.

Beck

95 VFR

Muck and heat were my main concerns too. It is very difficult to get a shot of the horn in place with the fairings back on, but it is over to the side - mud splash so far has been minimal, and even with some fairing-less commuting of late it has still kept rather well (just those mud-spots from when I went rally-style across a wet dirt road). Most of the mud/rain/muck splatter is between the two headers (you can see it on the radiator hose).

As for heat - well, should the horn touch the headers I expect the result won’t be pretty (but may pass as modern art?). That hasn't happened yet. And while the headers to get horrendously hot, the surrounding air temp drops off quickly. There is more than 5cm clearance from the pipes (have not measured it, so that is a conservative approximation), and so far no melting, blistering, cracking or other damage. This is after, as I said, about 2000km of riding with it installed - about half of that being spirited riding, the other half, commuting (and it really heats up in stop-n-go traffic!). Keep in mind I live in the tropics - the air here is hot and humid - no below freezing for me!

But if the horn dies, the horn dies, experiment failed, I'll buy another and shove it someplace else. As it stands, it is another install option to add to a very limited list. My install was inspired by some photos I saw of someone else who had shoved it down there - from memory theirs was still strong after 2 years (sorry to whoever that was, I have forgotten!).

[Dutchy]

and it just keeps on blowing..... :cheerleader:

[Serenity_VFR]

On the 5th gen, sure, on the 6th gen, it’s competing for space with the ECU - I don't think the horn will win that one.

You can fit it in a similar place on the left side on the 6th gens, but it's tight and tricky (if you take your time and cut out a nice bracket for it, it is possible). But this removes a rather convenient storage place for sensitive things and I am not sure if it is available on the ABS model. It also has most of the plastics between the horn and the outside world, which will have an impact on the loudness. Of course, that problem is almost unavoidable, but can be minimised.

That's too bad. It's a great fit for the Gen5 and the horn bells line up almost perfectly on a hole in the bodywork so they are blowing right out into the open air (on the right side so it's not quite as loud when the person cutting you off is on the left -but not by much.

My GF asks me emphatically NOT to blow the horn unless it is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, as it scares the bejesus out of her and hurts her ears even with earplugs in her ears under a full-faced helmet. It's pretty damn loud. She hates it.

Wherever you put it, the Stebel is a great horn -although I do suggest that it be mounted straight up and down as the manufacturer asks. I've heard that they don't last very long if you don't. The motor isn't designed to run that way and moisture can't drain out of the coiled nautilus horn if it somehow gets sprayed up in there.

[Guest GPM]

My GF asks me emphatically NOT to blow the horn unless it is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, as it scares the bejesus out of her and hurts her ears even with earplugs in her ears under a full-faced helmet. It's pretty damn loud. She hates it.

Wherever you put it, the Stebel is a great horn -although I do suggest that it be mounted straight up and down as the manufacturer asks. I've heard that they don't last very long if you don't. The motor isn't designed to run that way and moisture can't drain out of the coiled nautilus horn if it somehow gets sprayed up in there.

The instruction guide (as brief as it is) is very emphatic about the angle, which is probably the most limiting factor on many bikes - if you could put it at any angle there are plenty of other interesting spots to put it. I guess if you are that tight you could get the Stebel that Dutchman is using, but it's not a Nautilus.

As for volume, yes, loud. I was smart enough to take it out to an industrial estate not far from home on the weekend I installed it for testing. Satisfied with my work I headed home. When I got back my partner asked me what I had been up to, and I told her I installed a new horn. As I had just pulled into the garage, and she thinking it was a novelty horn of some sort, she quickly reached for the button - MWAP! Ouch. Enclosed spaces are not a good place for the Stebel!

Volume wise I like where I have placed it - it projects forwards very well - a little louder to the left then the right (juts because of angle it sits), but not significantly so. As an added bonus the engine block kills some of the noise for the rider, without impacting on who you are most likely going to honking - someone infront or infront to the side. The actual difference in volume between what I hear in the saddle, and what I hear when I stand infront still amazes me. And as I still have the OEM on there, the two tones work well together, even though the OEM still sounds weak. Still, I have read that dual-tones get attention better then single (they carry different somehow, or something).

[Dutchy]

fwiw

Mine are not Stebel, I have two of these fitted

http://www.fiammamerica.com/Product.asp?ProductID=156

:bliss:

[Guest duck888ltd]

My GF asks me emphatically NOT to blow the horn unless it is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, as it scares the bejesus out of her and hurts her ears even with earplugs in her ears under a full-faced helmet. It's pretty damn loud. She hates it.

Wherever you put it, the Stebel is a great horn -although I do suggest that it be mounted straight up and down as the manufacturer asks. I've heard that they don't last very long if you don't. The motor isn't designed to run that way and moisture can't drain out of the coiled nautilus horn if it somehow gets sprayed up in there.

The instruction guide (as brief as it is) is very emphatic about the angle, which is probably the most limiting factor on many bikes - if you could put it at any angle there are plenty of other interesting spots to put it. I guess if you are that tight you could get the Stebel that Dutchman is using, but it's not a Nautilus.

As for volume, yes, loud. I was smart enough to take it out to an industrial estate not far from home on the weekend I installed it for testing. Satisfied with my work I headed home. When I got back my partner asked me what I had been up to, and I told her I installed a new horn. As I had just pulled into the garage, and she thinking it was a novelty horn of some sort, she quickly reached for the button - MWAP! Ouch. Enclosed spaces are not a good place for the Stebel!

Volume wise I like where I have placed it - it projects forwards very well - a little louder to the left then the right (juts because of angle it sits), but not significantly so. As an added bonus the engine block kills some of the noise for the rider, without impacting on who you are most likely going to honking - someone infront or infront to the side. The actual difference in volume between what I hear in the saddle, and what I hear when I stand infront still amazes me. And as I still have the OEM on there, the two tones work well together, even though the OEM still sounds weak. Still, I have read that dual-tones get attention better then single (they carry different somehow, or something).

The Stebel's definitely get peoles attention. I took a video of my Ducati stock vs. Stebel:

BTW, at highway speeds the motor was alost 112 db. I could not even hear my own horn at those speeds. The new horn fixed that.

[Beck]

As I noted, the best mounting locations for horns is an area as high and dry as you can find under the fairing, for lngest life and reliability. I believe that if you look hard enough, you can find spaces in the upper fairngs on most VFR models that should work out. I too had to experiment and go through a few less than successful installations for my Fiamm low tone snail horn on my 95. Tried it first at the stock location in front of the radiator, but found out the front fender kissed it on bigger bumps ended up finding a space to the left of the upper radiator mount and the horn had been happily living there for at least eight years now.

Here's a pic:

MVC-010F.JPG

See it peeking out of the faring on the left side, below the left handlebar. I think a few 6th gen owners have mounted their Stebels near the same area under the faring, right next to the radiator.

Beck

95 VFR

Edited June 13, 2010 by Beck

[Knife]

I mounted mine under my right fairing.

On the road, my brother can't hear my Stebel when he's about 50' in front of me. Of course, he's getting older, been to way too many rock concerts in his youth, wears ear plugs, and is often oblivious to what's going on around him anyway. I love him anyway, though!

[Veefer Madness]

Clicky picky...

Over 3 years and no heat or other issues, :cool:

Greg :fing02:

[Beck]

Clicky picky...

Over 3 years and no heat or other issues, :cool:

Greg :fing02:

I always say, do it the best way you can if possible. If putting it next to the hottest parts of the bike is a good place, then already we've seen many bikes with that setup.....but we don't.....Don't we have enough problems with heat buildup damage to our RRs with Honda also locating it in the least ideal area under the seat fairings??....

Beck

95 VFR