I put over 25K mi. on a 1983 Nighthawk 550. When I first got it it had the standard Plexifairing, the one that is cut square/flat over the top of the rectangular/flat headlight. As time went in got scraped, dull, ding-ed and chipped; it just wore out. I got another one, and after a while it got cracked on a trip. All the while I had these I was amazed at the bubble of dead air it provides the rider. They are amazing for that. I could ride in some pretty frigid conditions and not be affected by the wind-chill effect, even down to my knees, since it has "lowers" that extend down the forks.
But the last one broke in summer, so I decided not to buy a new one AGAIN at $220.00 (or whatever). I set out to cut up the pieces I had left and make something effective that could allow more breeze through and still protect me from bugs and direct air flow. *Here is what I learned.* You really need to fiddle with this stuff to see. A shield that sits simply over the headlight will deflect air off your chest and over your head if it comes below your line of sight, but not too low. This is what I prefer, instead of the full height, looking through it all the time windshield, like Goldwings can afford. That shield can have the desired effect at your eye level and above the helmet, but you have to take the whole system airflow into account. I found that, with just a shield above the headlight, my helmet was rattled all over the place from wind that was coming from under each side of the handlebars. It was fatiguing. If, at speed, I held one hand open under one handlebar, stopping or redirected air flow above my knees, and the other one open under the other handlebar (steering and throttling with my third hand) that this buffeting went away almost completely. Furthermore the effect of air flowing under the handlebars and around my chest up into my helmet had an effect on the desired airflow over the top of the helmet which I was going for. After analyzing the way air flows into the bike head-on, I decided to add little "lowers" that were not very low, just below the handlebars attached to the forks extending down a good 10-12 inches and out about 5-6 inches. (Like the PlexiFairing does.) That worked like magic. It was really cool how they worked. I even liked how they looked. This left my knees and my fingers exposed, which in the summer was just fine, but as it got cold I found I had to wear more protection. Another thing I noticed was the power loss associated with pushing a big fairing at highway speeds. My old NH was a 550 in pretty good mechanical condition, but it would slow down just a little at constant highway throttle when I would simply move my feet from the stock pegs to the forward pegs up on the small highway bars that come on the `83 550. I was adding the drag associated with my legs from the knees down into the oncoming wind. This very clearly illustrated how, the more you redirect the wind from a path around your body, the more work you are doing. I never did address direct air flowing into my knees, hands at the grips. There are ways to deflect air from in front of the levers etc. I bought a poly fairing from one of those other companies to install on my wife's `82 Honda 450 Custom (just like the 82 Nighthawk). It was molded in a similar shape, but flatter. They did not force it into more extreme shape around the handlebars or headlight, like the PlexiFairing people do. That made it more like driving with a 3x4 sheet of flat plexi-glass in front of the bike. She had buffeting problems from the day we installed that. In fact, the buffeting she experienced was so severe it shook her confidence at highway speed. Because, unlike normal wind buffeting, it caused the bike to shake from a center point just above the axles. That was un-nerving. Instead of feeling pushed in my center and leaning into the wind, like the rest of us experience in high wind, it felt like something was about to force the wheels sideways. But this would happen at just above 50mph through 55. (We fiddled with that a lot before selling that bike and getting a heavier one.) So, you see where this is going right? If you do not have everything covered, and contoured correctly, like a PlexiFairing, the only way to get that effect, is to reproduce basically what the PlexiFairing does so well with individual pieces. BUT IT CAN BE DONE if appropriately placed. Anyway, blah³. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Nighthawk Motorcycle Lovers!" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/nighthawk_lovers. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
