Trace

I have no pic of the bracket. But it's totally sheitsimple. Drill hole in bezel (off the bike) where YOU think YOU want the light. Put screw thru bracket, but nut on other side, tighten. The "less robust" bracket makes if much easier to slide the light out of that particular bracket and make rpm changes. Yet it will hold the light plenty tight. No worries. The bigger bracket is for off road or something. But the light is removeable from that, too. However...it's bigger, holds the light further from the bezel, and thus limits how close you can place the light to the center area without interferring with ignition switch "swing". Seriously, it's no worries. Readily apparent when you have the stuff in your hand.

The yellow is easily seen, day and night. The red in my Vette, likewise. You have to realize that these LEDs are quite bright. But they don't blind you...it's not pointing into you eyeball. As for all the NASA mumbojumbo....get the color you like and don't worry about it. It'll be fine. Just like whatever oil you use...it's fine. I just don't like green LEDs, period. I keep the little cap with the bike, in case of rain or whatever, and the switches are in the "downhill" location, unlikely to get much or any water on them, unless hosing the bike. But sure, you could seal the thing 100% with a little silicone, once you decide on your rpm setting. I'm happy with 11,800....seems to meet my needs for a variety of reasons, but I haven't sealed anything. I don't think the solid state goodies in the light are very susceptible to water as long as it can drain and dry, IMHO. YMMV. And to address the other commentary about the merits of a shift light...as I said in my original post, I've been using them for years. I've been driving drag cars for a long time, using the shift light...just like every OTHER racer out there. Formula One cars have 'em. Sports cars have 'em. GTP cars, Spec racers, everything fast has 'em. But do I use it for every gear change? Hell no, of course not. I shift by feel and ear, just like all of you do every day. But when it comes to full-rpm blasting, I'm betting all of us look at the tach....well, all of us except me. I look down the road. Eyes forward. I don't look at the shift light or the tach. When the motor reaches 11,800...EXACTLY 11,800, I see the light in my peripheral vision and snickclick....next gear. Obviously, I have half a brain to know when I'm approaching those lofty rpms, so I'm ready when the light flicks on. There is no distraction, there is no guessing, there is no drawbacks. I'm willing to say....in direct response to some of you....that I DO need a light to tell me when to shift...with precision at full throttle, first time, every time. The tach is terrible....can't see what the rpm really is...and we KNOW it's 400 rpm high....so.....what gage do you guys use to be certain of your shift points? The seat of your pants? To tell the diff between 11,600 and 12,200? Or...12,600, which I've done a few times, almost getting tossed over the bars when the engine shuts off. :warranty: No...you're guessing, and guessing with a poor tach. So....why don't you disconnect your tach if you don't need it? Hmmmm..... To address the "distracting at night" concern, let me point out that it's only going off when you're at 11,800 or whatever....so you're doing something where you're pretty darn sure that flash says it's time to shift...if you want to. (I find that the 11,800 setting gives me a cushion so I'm not a total slave to the light...I can delay a heartbeat if I want) How can that be distracting? Will it surprise you that your motor is at 11,800 when you're laying on the tank at full throttle? Hardly. It's distracting to have to think about it, look at the tach...watch it climb. Nope, not for me. Too distracting. Give me: Flash = shift. I can tell this mod touched a nerve with a few of you....it immediately drew comments about Suzukis. Hmmmm.... Yeah, well, they ARE faster than us. And you don't care about fast? What's with all the Power Commander and air filter and exhaust posts? Isn't that about more power? Don't you want to know when to shift all that power? I guess the squid factor is making you uneasy. Trust me....nobody will know you have it....it's pretty stealthy. Your Goldwing pals will never see it. And it's a great tuning tool. Set it for 10,500. Make a mod. With a stopwatch, see how long it takes to get from 5000 [crank throttle, click stopwatch ON] to when you see the light flash [click stopwatch OFF, all the time with your eyes on the road]. Record time, and see if it was a power improvement over the baseline. You get repeatable results, time after time, instead of seat-o-pants guesswork. Anyway, I like it. I like making high-speed, top end, full acceleration blasts. I live in Florida. Near the beach. Flat. Straight. What else am I gonna do for fun?

Bump. See my edit (in red) about the horn making the shift light act unruly! :beer:

I'd thunk you'd have something witty and pithy to say about "BLUE is kinda cool, for you oddballs who have blue bikes"..... :goofy:

About 15 years ago, I "discovered" the advantages of a shift light vs. watching a tachometer and trying to anticipate when that needle will reach my chosen/safe shift point. Looking out the windshield, concentrating on driving, preparing to shift...and then you see a flash and BANG--next gear! I have a Raptor brand shift light in my Z-06, set at 6400 rpm to just miss the 6500 rev control. That motor spools up real fast, and until I got my Raptor shift light installed, I was always "hittin' the stop". I LOVE full-throttle max rpm shifting....but I don't like having the car nose over hard when the fuel is shut off by Mr. Goodwrench. When I got my VFR last spring, I was very leery of the odd redline markings on the tach (what IS redline, anyway?), very leery of rumors of it reading 400 high, and very, very leery of looking at the thing at 12,000+ rpm when I should be looking forward! Solution? Spend $85 and get an adjustable, precise, bright Raptor shift light! http://www.raptorperformance.com/ There are several LED colors available, and the same for the housing. Of course I picked nice, bright fast YELLOW, with a simple black housing, but I suspect many of you will choose the slower RED version. BLUE is kinda cool, for you oddballs who have blue bikes, and I don't know WHAT you SILVER guys are gonna do. Anyway, to each their own. Each light comes with a color matched cap which is fine in a car interior at night, but no good for us during the day. Use it to cover the light in rain or when washing the bike. The Raptor isn't a waterproof unit, (it is all solid state/low voltage, so no big deal with water for me or other bikers, as far as I know) so don't drench it. Raptor says a waterproof version is in the works for cycles, since so many people are now using this little gem on bikes. You'll notice that the light can be used with 1-12 cylinder engines, and it works up to 19,800 rpm. All that's required is to set the cylinder switches and the rpm dials. (We won't be setting it for 4 cylinders OR 12,400 rpm, more on that below) Start by removing the side fairings and the front (headlight) fairing, which includes mirrors, windshield and the bezel around the gauge panel. Use a thick towel taped to the front fender so you can let the front fairing rest there while you unplug the headlight connectors (not 100% necessary), and the turn signals, if you haven't already done so by then. When removing the bezel, be careful around the triples and hydraulic reservoirs, as it's easily scuffed. Put some masking tape on all those items (ALL of 'em!!) to prevent heartbreak. Okay, now locate the light. Use the smaller, less "robust" light clip, as it provides more clearance from the forks/triples/stuff and is easier to get the light in and out for adjustments. I found that it could go surprisingly close to the center without interference, as you can see in this photo. border='0' alt='user posted image' /> Shift Light Location Do NOT cheap out and secure the clip to the bezel with a cheesy sheetmetal screw, as it will certainly loosen up in no time! Use a nice stainless 10/32 machine screw (1/2 inch long or so) and nut, drill thru the bezel about an inch down from the top edge, and screw the clip down nice and tight (a drop of Loctite on the nut is a good idea). Now you can put the bezel back on. Hopefully, you didn't scuff it....but I'm betting that you did, because you didn't listen to my precaution about using masking tape/towels, etc. It's your own fault. Now to the electricals. The instructions with the Raptor are very good, so if it seems like I'm glossing over things here....there's plenty of info with the light. For the rpm signal to the light, we tap the number 2 ignition coil. We DON'T tap the ECU tach wire or the speed sensor or whatever. If you do that, you're sure to fry the electronics....and that puny milliamp/millivolt ECU signal won't fire the light anyway. And who KNOWS what that signal's frequency is and what it's telling the LCD electronic tach. So....simply connect the light's green trigger wire to the number 2 coil primary wire, like this: border='0' alt='user posted image' /> Ignition Coil Tap As you can see, I simply used the crimp-type splice/tap connectors. Works great for these very low amperage applications, but I don't trust them for "serious" power tapping, i.e. anything that should use a fuse, like that old 8-track tape player you've been wanting to add to your Goldwing. Just to avoid any confusion, you can hook this green wire to ANY coil primary wire....but the number coil 2 is simply convenient. Now you need power and ground for the light's red and black wires, respectively. You have plenty of choices, but you'll want to use a power lead that's energized only when the key is ON. I found a nice little power source and ground coming off of the bank angle/engine shutoff/tilt sensor thingo. The fat white wire is power, the fat green is ground. You don't want to touch the red/white striped wire. And pay no attention to the color of the wires I used that lead back to the shift light....I spliced in the thick red and blue wires for some reason (don't remember why...not important, might have been due to the particular crimp taps I had laying around..dunno), but you can certainly use Raptor's wires to tap power and ground....they come about 10 feet long! border='0' alt='user posted image' /> Power and Ground Taps I won't go into details of wire routing....you're on your own but it's no big deal at all. The 3 wires out of the light are in a black plastic sheathing and it simply disappears amongst all the other wires down there. You need to leave some slack for removing the light and changing rpm setting, but not more than a foot or so. Okay, if you think you're all hooked up, set the light on 1 cylinder (remember that one coil you tapped?) and set the rpm to something easy like 4000, but no more than 9000. Turn the key to ON and the light will count out for you its setting by going through a blink sequence. Then, start bike and rev it slowly, watching the tach. At 4400 rpm your light will go off, because the @#&*#$%^ tach reads 400 rpm high!! So, now you know the light works and fires at 4000 rpm, and you've confirmed that the factory tach is bogus. Good. Now, on the one cylinder mode, you can only set the light for 9,900 rpm. But we want to go higher!! To do that, as discussed in the Raptor info, you simply set the light for twice as many cylinders and halve the rpm setting, and somehow the electronicals inside the light make the right decision. :P So, I set my light for 11,800 rpm by changing to the 2 cylinder mode and then turning the two rpm dial settings to 5000 and 900. 5900 x 2=11,800. I choose this setting because it gives you a few heartbeats of time to actually perform the shift....be it full-throttle, closed-throttle or whatever, and from what I've learned here, the motor is running out of breath at that point anyway. But I gotta tell you....having a shift light makes it really easy and fun to probe the higher limits of our horsepower (and noise!) range. My bike, with my PC changes (particularly timing) still pulls pretty hard up there. :thumbsup: I might go up to a 12,000 rpm setting, but I don't see any real need to. Here's the light with the color matched cap. And it comes with a black cap, if, for some strange reason you DON'T want to see the light. (?) border='0' alt='user posted image' /> Shift Light w/ Yellow Cap Before long, you'll forget the light is there, until one day soon you'll really wick it up, watching that car you're passing or that Harley you're showing off to instead of the tach. You'll see that flash of your chosen color.....next gear! http://www.raptorperformance.com/ Oh...there is one odd thing about this mod. When you toot the horn, the light will flash for a bit...a second or two. It's not a big deal, because you're probably not tooting at 12,000 rpm....at least I hope you're not. At first I thought it was because of a momentary voltage drop due to current draw to the horn. But those are big wires I tapped into, and aren't part of any direct horn electrics. So....I thought maybe it's due to the magnetic field that's generated around the horn. Or maybe the Dilithium Crystals are low on power. Anyway, I've gotten to where I sorta like it. Toot! Flash!

oldfart--excellent post!! Thank you for that "first-hand experience" insight. And so sorry your bike was "embarassed" in its nekkedness! I figured it would be proud of its big....hard.....firm....throbbing....protruding.....exhaust!! :P :P

Ah, yes. Good point...forgot about shields. But, what a shield it must be! Plan on a shield that crosses the gap at the clamps....but must come apart to allow dis/assembly...won't vibrate loose....has to keep your ankle from cooking......lots of things to consider with these shields....not the least of which is tight quarters and tight bends. But...if you can do it, it would be nice! I'm too lazy...it's the Honda shield for me!

Honestly, I'm not a big fan of the area behind the right side heat shield. The joints and clamps aren't all that purty (even when Jetted) and the arse end of the motor is a gravel collector. I sat back and carefully "looked" when I was putting my pipes on today, as I hated to hide $50 worth of the Jet-Hot cost behind a shield....but I prefer the less busy, cleaner look of the nice, charcol colored shield. But the pipes DO look nice inside the black center fairing up front. Make sure you take little metal polish to the oil cooler lines....they clean right up and complement the pipes.

It cost me: $15 to ship to Pascagoula Mississippi. $145 for the actual blasting, coating, etc. $27 for them to shjp 'em back, in a real nice box, loads of bubble pak, wrapped all careful, etc. Note: They ship FedEx Ground, Signature REQUIRED, so.....if that means you have nobody at home during the day, chose your return address accordingly! I chased several friggin' FedEx trucks around town on the designated day of delivery,.....eventualy found the right one.....in the parking lot of my office complex after I had given up and gone back to work!! :D I guess you can ask them to NOT do the signature thing. My stock 2000 exhaust is now for sale. I paid a VFRD member $225 for his, so I could do this [plus the week-long gutting & welding procedure, which I'll post a how-to for in a few days] without having my bike out of action. I'll sell my stock pipes for $150, plus shipping (figger $20ish), and I'll send them in the killer Jet-Hot box that my coated set came in. Mebbe J-H will cut you a little break in their shipping cost if you use their box. Then, you can sell your ugly black rusty stockers to ANOTHER VFRD member....use the same box....and we have a regular system working!! :goofy: In fact, they're already boxed up, waiting for a buyer.

Yeah...I know....I never get the girrrllll...... But I now have pipes that are attached to something! :thumbsup: border='0' alt='user posted image' /> Bling bling down below!

Uh.....might I suggest sending her to sunny Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida for a few weeks of vacation while you do the Jet-Hot swapperoo? I'll see that she gets plenty of time on the back of a VFR! :beer: (oops, sorry...sorry!! :goofy: ) Anyway, here'a a "halfway there" pic. border='0' alt='user posted image' /> Looks good in the sunlight!

You're a feararkin' nut! :P I should mention that there are BIG welds inside the stock head pipes, right where the flange/ring is....that is, BIG welds in YOUR pipes....mine are ported to "almost not there" condition. The welds are beautifully done, but they reduce inside pipe diameter by 3/16 - 1/4 inch at that particular point. So that, plus no cat-guts, should be "better" than stock flow rates, but prolly a bit off the mark of true 4-1 headers. If I thought I could find 'em, I'da waited and Jetted those!! So, do you like that strange satin/chrome/alumy/stainlessy finish? And......best of allllllll...........never turns "Harley Blue". BTW, I have the EK chrome chain...love it....and my "nuts" on the master link.

Here's a few shots of my Jet-Hotted pipes. I'm gonna install them right now (even though it's PERFECT weather here in Ponte Vedra Beach...should be riding!) I'll make a new "Check *This* Out" post showing details of the cutting and gutting, and some intalled bling bling pics in a day or two. Notice where the O2's were....now have metic plugs in 'em from the auto parts emporium..basically replacement oil drain plugs for a few bucks. Jet-Hot secures the flanges with wire so they stay in a proper location for best appearance during the coating process. I think they've done this sort of thing before! :goofy: border='0' alt='user posted image' /> Gutted Cat, Jet-Hot Coated border='0' alt='user posted image' /> Green stickers are inspection sign-off for each piece border='0' alt='user posted image' /> Closeup of gutted cat-bottom: removed, gutted, rewelded

"Bambi in rut"---good one! I've always wondered about the "tail-in-air' look....Bambi it is!! Heat shield--you don't have to remove it, since the really nice portion of the pipes is the part that snakes around down near the centerstand, and then there's the nice shiny gutted cat instead of the dark, heat-shielded cat box. The easy cleaning of that cat-area, due to Jet coating, is something I'm gonna love. And your idea about heat shields for the head pipes? Veeery interesting. Might work, and maybe they could hide the two clamps (although mine are all Jetted, too and look great.) Pics tomorrow.

Yeah, those headpipes, right there off the cylinder, are like twin roasting elements. And that's too bad as I'd really like to remove the shield (and brackets) to see the Jet coating. There is a slight chance that the coating will live up to it's reputation of containing "underhood" heat, but I can't imagine it will be enough to keep the right foot/ankle/laaaaaaage area from becoming BBQ'd.

Welllllll....er....ahhhh....ummm.....isn't there something you can do with the tag? Why can't it go under the muff, way forward, up by the spring? You can hang it off the pipe by welding a little bracket up there (before Jet-Hot!!), then bolting your stainless plate (probably a new one, with different bend angle) to it. You can practically hide it up there, within reason, like the Gixxer punks do. Or put it up near the spring, maybe? (don't know how much room you now have under there) My humble opinion is that you're hiding the coolest feature of your work (which is outlets poking out from under the seat) with a tag. I'd rather see it on a tidy little bracket off the right-side passenger footpeg apparatus than where it is, but way forward under the muff would be best. Seriously. And remember, you can trim about 3/8 inch off each side of the tag, maybe more, without being "illegal", which greatly reduces the visuals of it. Trust me...when you Jet that muff, you're NOT gonna want a tag anywhere near it. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Just wait 'til you see my pics come Friday. We'll have that wallet smokin'!! I'm thinking $325, give or take $25 or so, from exhaust port to....to....to...er...ahhh...ummm.....license plate. :goofy:

And especially inside the black v-shaped middle fairing or wotever it's called, there betwixt the side fairing in front of the motor. Gives that dowdy area some zing, finally. Then you'll find yourself cleaning and polishing all that stuff in there...oil cooler, valve cover, and other bits that are in view and get noticed since the pipes get so much attention. That pic doesn't do the product justice, but it gives the idea. I have a black Erion pipe, too, and like the black/yellow/alumy look of the whole bike. However, I'm debating about the heat shield...because it....well.....shields heat from yer laage! I made a test run the other day with it off....yikes! The vicious radiant heat, not to mention the hot air coming out of there too, is HOT!! Mebbe the Jet-Hot coating will make it bearable. Believe me, I'd like to see as much of these pipes as possible. I'll post a pic of my pipes to this thread sometime on Friday for all interested in getting rid of the blah black pipes.

Jet Hot is a proprietary product, ( jet-hot.com ) applied at two shop locations, LA and Pascagoula Mississippi (yeah, they survived Katrina). There is also a company called HPC (High Perf Coatings, in California) and another called Classic Coatings in Wisconsin, I think. This is not simple powdercoating, it's a very high temp ceramic/metallic type of powdercoat that's baked to a fare-thee-well. There is a chance that you may have a local shop that does something similar....I didn't here in Ponte Vedra/Jacksonville, and I looked in the big city of Orlando, too. So, yeah, you box it up and send to Jet-Hot (my headpipes cost $15 for me to send to Mississippi, UPS Ground), they bill your Visa, tacking on the FedEx Ground shipping, which cost $25 or so. And they really box it up. Total turnaround time was....8 days, I think. Mebbe 9. They send it back in enough cardboard and bubble pak to open your own UPS store. Again, my headpipes cost $145/shipping. They give you a quote when you call or send an e-pic of your stuff. I'll send you a pic of my pipes this Friday when I return from this business trip I'm on right now, before I get 'em on. A hidden mount would be nice, but an underslung mounting strap is a positive stop that prevents disasters! You could easily make a nice one out of steel strap and it would look GREAT Jet-Hotted. Very factory. Very slick. As for having to touch up your muff due to rock chips or burning or whatever.....you'll NEVER have to touch up anything Jet-Hotted. I wonder how funky your flat red paint will get when dirty water is slung up against it and the goop bakes on instantly. Cleaning instructions for Jet-Hot? Wipe annually with wet rag. I'm telling ya...as much work as you've done, it DESERVES the cost and hassle of shipping your stuff to Jet-Hot. And you don't even have to remove your red paint....they blast it to white metal for ya! Makes them nasty welds look goooooooooooooood.......

Lon, That's all very groovy, but I urge you to get with Jet-Hot and have all your clever fabrication (and maybe your headpipes) coated with their *Sterling* finish. I just got my gutted cat stock system back from them and it looks absolutley fantasmigorical. Cost was $145 plus custom-protection shipping. They blast it before coating/baking it, BTW, so it's really a nice finish. Not quite chrome, not quite stainless, not quite aluminum, but a combination of all three. Man is it niiiiice. For you it would look killer, AND you get the added benefit of better radiated heat control for the up pipe and under the seat, and which tends to increase power in some cases due to better scavenging action. For that matter, you could also send your hangar strap, or make a more "official looking" strap and send it. Send the clamps/visible hardware, too. It call all be made to look "factory-custom", should you want to go that route. Don't get too clever and coat it in their nice black finish...you'll be radiating heat like a Franklin stove and your "Staintunes Model" won't much like that!! :salesman: I'll be posting pics of my gutting and Jet-Hotting early next week, so you will be able to see how it looks on the head pipes.

magellan, That'll teach ya to leave!! :P Yep, I fully agree with your "roundup" assement. You've bracketed the issues quite well. Mebbe we should just go RIDE the suckers and quit hacking our airboxes and gutting the poor, meowning cats! Nope...sorry....dying to see what the results of my torching and JetHot-ting the stock system will bring!! :beer: I'm thinking lots of PC tweaks are in my future. Glad I live in warm Florida so I can ride and tinker all "winter". Hey...wait....who you calling a nutcase? I resemble that remark! [And as for my Vette....after modding my 2000's "basic 350 hp" engine, I chose to do NOTHING to the 405 hp Z06 mill. No air mods, no exhaust mods (like I'm gonna remove the titanium exhaust and put SS on it!), no nothing....except a shifter, as the stocker is crap. I'd weld the hood shut if it wasn't made of fiberglass!! Point is, it's gangbusters right from the get-go...why ruin a good thing? I got it to go an 11.70, bone stock. Fergitaboutit! Don't want to be a nutcase about that car! Wash it--Drive it.]

I'm with you on all that, although I might have missed the detailed point about that particular bike vs. ours. Wot I DO know a little about is the huge amounts of freakish science and hodgpodge experimental tweaks that are made on race cars, particulary those with a big fat carb sitting right underneath a monster hoodscoop, in a variety of attempts to right a wrong or improve a marginal right. Before 1970, hood scoops were taken directly off the hood surface, naturally, right? Just like always. Then one day, the big meanie Chrysler unleashed their factory designed and built Pro Stock Barracuda (known as the Mopar Missle) on the racing world. Sitting on the hood was this obscenly tall hood scoop, with a snorkel on that hood scoop, such that the inlet poked its nose into non-boundary layer, non-turbulent air. Inside were slats and eggcrates and other flighty stuff, all to properly jam air down the eight huge carbs throats....without upsetting the bleeds and vents and other bits that make the carb meter properly. Never been done before. Very high-tech. Worked, too. Within a month, every car out there had some bulbous nose in it's hood.....but the science was beyond the normal racer. And now? Nearly every form of auto racing (including F1) has their air coming in through a tall snorkley convenance. But remember...all WOT, no noise, no emissions, no mileage requirements! Anyway, thank you, Chrysler. I tried, but 1) it just doesn't work like that due to geometry, 2) didn't want to ruin the alignment of the outlet to the muffler, in spite of plans for jigs and such, and 3)....yeah, Big Number Three.....I recognized the point of diminishing returns, I think. Getting the cat out of the bag will be a significant reduction in back-pressure, I have determined. So.....cut the bottom off, wrestled the cat-guts out, rewelded the bottom back on, sent to Jet Hot....awaiting return. We'll see. Could be crap!

I fully believe that is true. Obviously, those aero tweaks were bigtime science at work trying to correct a "wrong", just like all bigtime racing R&D work. Yup, yup. With ya 100% on that one! What are the wrongs in our airbox? Anybody wanna take a guess? Can you see the wind? MAYBE the box is already optimized with science! Anyone know? Anyone want to take a hacksaw to it, being as we now know that Honda did some serious research on these SuperhawkStorm airboxes? Isn't our bike a technology leader? Afer all, it's not a CB 450 runabout...it's a Flagship bike!! Chop away, fellers! You beat me to it with your flying little fingers! As I said in post #2, above, I believe that the snorkel/flappy are a restriction to airflow to the area above the filter, and restriction is not good. How much restriction? Dunno, but the motor runs pretty damn good with those horible restrictions in place, doesn't it!?!?! Chopping your airbox to flinders? Methinks you've just crossed the line of diminishing returns. And that's what it's all about, isnt' it? Spend lots of money and chop things all to hell for a scant few HP (maybe)? But looks who's talking--I've spent a bunch of money and time to gut my cat and have the thing JetHot coated!! :beer: I'm a dummy, but I know that cats are not good, either, because they've been added and so I'll gut and PC map accordingly. So....how much did our Father leave on the table? Snorkles, flaps and cats? Methinks so.

Well, you asked a good question!! :thumbsup: And if you recall a prior rant of mine about turbulence and flappers and snorkles and filters and stacks.....I begged everybody to quit trying to guess what's going on in their intake tracts, as it's futile. Might as well guess about your digestive tracks, and if the morning's eggs and toast are properly mixing with lunch..or did the eggs get ahead of that sandwich, somehow. Tune for what you know. Stay away from what you don't have a tinker's clue about! And again....turbulence in air...pure, normal air that your bike is sniffing as it goes down the road and sucks into its deflapped, desnorkled nostrils....makes no difference. Okay....if it's bad, it makes a 1/16th HP loss, mebbe. But ya see, that air has no fuel in it. So...turbulence is a moot point. Some guys WANT turbulence, because they think it swirls into the engine like a firggin' corkscrew. Some guys HATE turbulence, because they remember what it did to airflow that had carburetor fuel in it. Other guys remember tunnel-ram motors that tried real hard for laminar flow to get a ramming effect from the inertial of the air/fuel mix that was in the long runners. We ain't got long runners. And we ain't got carbs. Some guys HATE, some guys WANT...meaning....what I've been trying to say...is nobody knows except Father Honda, and he ain't talking! Face it...once that air enters the stacks, it's very much out of our hands. Down it goes, pulsing and dancing with what the intake valve and piston tells it to do. Having said all that, I do believe that de-flapping/snorkeling is a good thing, as those were added for sound control, NOT for any performance or low-speed torque thing. Nonsense. Would additional hacking the box make more power. Wellllll.....I doubt it, as there's plenty of intake area available. So, let's take our lids and air filters off and see. Or leave the filter on and go for a ride. Put a strap of duct tape across it if it worries ya, but I'll bet it will stay in position. Time yourself in 3rd gear with a stopwatch, 5000 to 11000 RPM. Better? Worse? Same? Dunno. Let's ALLLLLL try it, average the data, and get a good answer to the good question!

Our engines are NOT smart in that regard. They have no idea of the "amount" of air, and instead use data such as Mainfold Absolute Pressure, Atmospheric Pressure, Air Temp, engine temps, RPM, O2 data and such stuff to take a shot at the fuel needs at a given load and RPM. The engine in my Vette has a Mass Airflow Sensor that, well, measures mass airfow and tweaks the mix via that KEY device and all the other billions of sensors that car has to make big power and still get 27 mpg and STILL blow daisies out the tailpipe for the Earth First folks. A dumb old carbed engine is much "smarter" than our Viffer engines, in that a carb is a flow compensating device--the more air sucked through it via the engine, the more fuel it meters into the airstream. The ratio of this metering is changed by changing jets, as we know, to get richer or leaner. But that's where it becomes dumb again, as this ratio is unchanging for most of the engine's operating spectrum. Thus, limited mileage and limited pollution control. Detroit tried to help those inherent problems with a number of carburetor Band-Aids in the 70s and early 80s, as they had nowhere else to go. Fuel injection was mechanical, only, and it was REALLY dumb. Squirt. Squirt. Squirt. There were no little electronical brains to control the timing and "squirt" of an electronical injector. Tweaked and strangled carbs it was, and they ran terrible. Then it was the throttle body and single injector. Remember those? Easy to control with the limited brainpower available, and generally ran like crap. I think it only used a MAP sensor and maybe O2s, maybe. And a temp, prolly. Forget, now. Dunno. Anyway, back to our engines. With our somewhat "dumb" FI system, I'd venture to say that it's fairly easy to upset the balance that the designers had in mind, as there's little or no compensation built in for typical hotrodder mods. Yeah, a pipe is prolly fine, as the mix is likely rich except in closed-loop fuel sipping mode. And airbox mods reduce pumping loss also, but could upset the mix by any radical changes. But it's likely that the box is already very good, so no amount of "radical changes" in the inlet side will upset the applecart. As I've said before, I just don't see Father Honda leaving any easy horsepower on the designer's table, within the restrictions of noise, driveability, mileage, etc. Has anyone REMOVED the lid top and their air filter and gone for a litle spin? Don't worry...unless you are going down a dirt road behind a lumber truck, you won't hurt anything. I might do that thise weekend, just to see if the bike wheelies in 5th gear. :P As for turbulence and the air induction stacks....you're trying to see the wind. But, as I've also said before...anything upstream of the filter, short of putting a blower on the bike, won't make any diff to the stacks or the FI stuff. It doesn't care. It's gonna inject fuel into the manifold, well away from the stacks, in accordance with all the sensors, period. But, anything you can do to lessen pumping loss--to a point--can't hurt power possibilities. It's that "to a point" that we should focus on. Honda didn't leave much power on the table. No matter how much you hack the airbox, it won't make your Viffer into a 'busa. So, that brings up PC stuff. I believe that small changes in exhaust/intake passages (because that's all we ever do...obsess on our pipes and airboxes!!) will require FI tweaking because the system is NOT smart. It can get out of kilter. Thus I also believe that the only power that Honda left on the table is that of overly lean or overly rich points in the FI map. Those bad spots, wherever they're hiding, coupled with airbox and exhaust mods could really hurt performance. Getting the maps right, with or without airflow passsage mods, without regard to mileage or pollution control nonsense, will show power gains. This we have all seen with the various dyno graphs vs. PC tweaks. And, as we know, most situations are solved with an available map (Staintune, headers, etc etc). From there, it takes either lots of testing or the use of A/F sniffers along with dyno graphs to finalize the perfect map. And we haven't even talked about ingnition timing yet!! It's all in the map, for better or worse. Yeah, I agree. Yup, yup, yup. Yup.