The Sport Fairing Project (end of the saga)

[Extent]

Since I'm laid up with electrical problems for a couple days I figured I might as well work on some things I wanted to try, like rewiring the gauges and making a fairing, or else I'ld never get to them.  So here I present the progress thread for my fairing.  When I get finished I'll probably throw it up on a proper page on my site with all these pictures, but for now this will do.

I did end up going with the foam core, and I'm glad, it soo easy to work with.  It's a bit of a pain to lay down, but once it's cured up it's the easiest thing to form in the world.

I've just got it half hung with tape right now, because I didn't make a bracket to hold it up, planning on making a bracket after I get a shape down, but I might have done that differently if I started over again.

I've just got clearances cut in it, so it will go to full lock left and right and shouldn't hit if the suspention bottoms out.  I've got the front fork loaded as much as my pathetic little 150 Lb body can manage, and tied it that way with an extension cord.  Then I cut a section of pippet the length of where the I can see the fork rides up to (a little cleaner than the rest, I need new seals, I've already bought them)  which is about 1" from the bottom tripple clamp.  I used that to make sure that everything is out of the way of the fender.

I'm off to start carving.  I'll post more pictures as things happen.

-edit-
doh! forgot the pictures.

[Extent]

And here would be the results of tonight's labor.  Need to fill in the pitts with some more foam, and start bringing the sides lower to meet towards the underside.

[ChopperGuy]

 :o Are u nutts? that foam will for 1 get destroyed wen riding down the road, or evan if u bump it with ur knee, as well as how are u gonna mount a head light, plus, alot of paint will deterierate that... My sugjestion is that u use that as a mold and make a fiberglass one... Jus my opinion, but hey might as well try lol

[Extent]

I did say this was just the core  :P.  I plan on eventually doing it in carbon fiber, once I get something that I'm entirely sure of, I'm hoping one layer of CF and two layers of matting will be strong enough since it's not a load bearing structure.  $42 a yard is a bit too much to experiment with.  The first one will be with some medium weight material I have.

[Lead_Deficiency]

Thats a nasty yeast infection (haha).

But really it looks pretty good. I think carbon fibre could be hard to work with, you might want to try fibre glass first. You'll really have people guessing with that F1 faring.

[louthepou]

I am really impressed. Now there's a man who's not affraid to try something new! Looking forward following your progress,

Louis

[fiddlesticks]

First pic- this is your brain
Second pic- this is your brain on Vision

lol
Seriously though thats really looking good.

[QBS]

Love your creativity and courage.  Way to go!

[Superfly]

Looks great, good idea! I was thinking of doing something similar (you beat me to it) but using fiberglass strips over a mould.  Have you thought about mounting it yet?  That is what I am thinking about now.

 ;DLoad bearing structure? You sound like an Architect! ;D

[Josh M]

The first pictures look like a sheep having a really bad hair day.  I've thought about making my own fairing, but I hadn't thought to use foam to shape it.  

[Extent]

Load bearing structure? You sound like an Architect! ;D

Heh, took that right out of a 10 page article I read on composite materials.  They were making a wing cap for a car, did it out of 6 layers of matte and a foam inner section.  I'm hoping the el-cheapo CF material will still be much stronger than standard cloth, and still offer alot of weight savings.

The CF I'm looking at is not the pre-impregnated stuff that they make F1 cars out of, because that requires vaccume bagging and an autoclave to form, it's just a half carbon fiberglass weave.  Although I'ld use an epoxy resin rather than polyvinyl.

I haven't thought about how to mount it, I'm going to wait till I get a shape down and a fiberglass shell to experiment with that.  I'm not particularly looking forward to it.  Need to figure out how to do it with stock mount points, and clear the forks, and keep it as light as possible doing as little welding as possible.  I really need to get a welder, and I could borrow one, it's just not convenient.  I'll probably start with a light frame for the inside of the fiberglass to give it attatchment points and to hold things like headlights and guages, then I'll figure out how to hold that to the frame.

I don't want the mount to be too complex so it's reletively easy to take it off for maintanance or if you want to run the bike naked you don't have to take all day to get the thing off.

[Superfly]

Have you seen the mounting system for the typ. full fairing? ?I thought is was a really good idea, I was thinking of building off of that idea.  What spray foam did you use?

[Extent]

No I haven't, if you've got pictures of how it mounts to the frame I'ld love to see them.

I don't remember the brand off the top of my head, but I got it at both Lowes hardware and The Home Depot.  Yellow cans for regular and black cans for extra expanding foam.  It's for sealing windows and doors and cracks and pipes and stuff.  It's cutable, sandable, and paintable.  I used I think 9 cans of regular and 2 cans of extra expanding for what you see in the first pictures.  The extra expanding is much better and I would have had to use alot less if I had started with it.

[Humber]

WOW......... at last some, soee inventiveness is always good... at least for me ;D

[silicon_toad2000]

love your work mate, love your work

[Extent]

I'm almost done with the top 3/4.  The underside is turning out to be a pain, I might do it a little different way.  I picked up a headlight from a Honda F4, mirrors from a CBR900RR, and generic low profile side markers.

Unfortunatly the headlight aims a bit high, so there is defenatly some adjusting I'm going to have to do.





And a little mini victory dance for me getting this far I hooked the headlight up... woooo..:P


Now I've got to wait till tomorrow morning (or this morning as it were) to fill it up with oil and see if the stator fixed the problem *hopes really hard*

The prospect of getting it streetable again will force me to finish my guages tonight for sure tho

[Venture]

Hey good job there. I love the look of that headlight on the Vision...

[Lead_Deficiency]

Looks cool.  Can you see the mirror past the handle bars?

[h2olawyer]

That fairing is looking great!  I wasn't sure where you were headed when it looked like a big popcorn ball.  Guess the secret is to start out with a blob of foam and carve away everything that doesn't look like a fairing.  Are you going to use a stock windshield from a current sportbike or custom bend one to top it off?

If I tried something like this, it would never get even on both sides and would definitely sit cockeyed.  Never was much of an artist so I applaud your effort & talent.

H2O

[Blake]

wow... definately starting to look good..  i just put on a fairing from  what i believe was a 92-96 gsxr600..  fairing looks pretty good on it, although its a race fairing, but was thinking of putting sides on too when i can get around to confirming thats the bike it came from.  but i will say im impressed.  i for one, have very little artistic talant and have to agree with H20 that mine would definately come out cock-eyed.


please keep up updated.  and also...could you let me know how you have it mounted? (when you get around to it)  right now i have the gixxr fairing mounted to the two bolt holes located on the frame, to each side of the lower steering stem.  ive never seen an 83 fairing mount, so i wasnt sure how even that is mounted, but id definately love to see what you come up with.

great work!


Blake