Fitting the fairings

The fairings are made of fiberglass of some sort, and are not too difficult to cut out. In fact, the process was fairly painless and I forgot to take pictures of the actual work being done, so descriptions will have to be adequate for this go round. I do however have some nice pictures of the end result. It certainly makes the bike look a bit meaner, and gives it that "sportbike" look. All of the cuts on the fairings were carefully marked using specific calculations called the "do it by eye" technique. The pieces were then cut using a Dremel tool with a rotary cutter and a flat base to keep it perpendicular to the body pieces. Once cut, a bit of hand work with sandpaper and a jitterbug sander were all it took to clean things up.

Fairings cut to fit

Well, here is the first picture in the series. As you can see, the fairings are all cut and fit on the bike. The only piece missing at this point is the front fender, which I do have but forgot to put on. I still have to find a cover for the battery box in the rear fairing, so if anyone has one leftover from their YSR days, please consider donating it to the cause and shoot me an email! PLEASE!

Left side of the bike

The left side of the bike is very clean so far, with only a small amount of the fairing cut away for the engine at the very bottom. There are some tight clearances inside and the cuts may have to be enlarged around the turbine inlet if I can not find a suitable way to shield the pieces from the intense heat. Fortunately I have all of the heat shielding goodies from Design Engineering that may do the trick. I will have to check it out once I get everything completed here and have the engine running in the bike though.

Ground clearance

From the left side you can see the available ground clearance pretty good in this low shot. The extension of the swingarm also starts to be quite visible as well. Of special note is the nifty little stand I fabricated to hold up the rear of the bike from the swingarm. There are small "v" grooves at the top of the stand which mesh with small pieces welded to the bottom of the swingarm. This keeps things nice and steady. The design of the stand lets me change the rear tires with the bike jacked up too. Sometimes it is the little things that make life easier!

Lotsa room now

Taking a look from the back end, you can see there is lots of room for the exhaust now, and even some extra room for batteries and such. What at first glance looks like a small area, should give enough room for lots of goodies. That swingarm looks a bit sparse though. I have just the thing for it however, in the form of some nice CO2 bottles to power the bike systems. I will be fabricating some mounts for them to fit back there this weekend, and know that I will be using at least 2 bottles, but possibly 4. We'll just have to see how they turn out.

Close fit

Here is a nice shot that shows how close the turbine inlet sits to the fairings. Although I can cut more out, I really like the look of things being so hidden and clean. Once again, this will have to be put to testing to see if it can stay this way with the heat.

View from the front

The bike still almost looks stock from the front. Of course the engine sticks out the side a bit, but is actually more compact that we originally thought. If you look closely, you can see how far it sticks out in relation to the footpeg which is right above the combustion chamber in this photo. The lean angle on the bike is still 45 degrees, which means that the bike can be leaned over a full 45 degrees when going into a right hand turn. A tighter lean angle is better for higher speeds, but it is a small price to pay for getting a jet engine crammed into one of these bikes.

Broken upper fairing

Here is a bit of a problem. The upper front fairing on the bike has a nasty break in it. The piece is completely missing right where the upper attaches to the lower. I had hoped that the piece could be fixed easily, but decided I would rather have a nice clean one if I could find one somewhere. Fortunately, I found one on Ebay just a couple days ago, and expect it to arrive any day. This will save a lot of time in getting things ready for paint, and wont have those ugly telltale signs of a repair on them.

Should look like this

This is the way the fairings should come together when not broken. The upper isn't even bolted to the lower right now, they are just hanging from the frame brackets, but you can clearly see the look is much better.

Turbine inlet

Here is another great shot of the left side and the turbine inlet. I really like the way it looks since the exhaust bend that was made earlier follows almost the same lines as the fairings. If additional material has to be cut away for heat reasons, it will make the cut extend up to the point where the swingarm bolt can be seen on the side frame piece. I do hope that can be avoided.

The exhaust path

The exhaust certainly has a much cleaner path to follow now, and there will be less curves in the plumbing which can rob power from the output of the engine. Every bend in the exhaust can steal a little bit of thrust from the final output, so straighter is definitely better here. This rear end will be covered up soon with the new afterburner system. The new afterburner has been modified greatly, and will be twice as fun, hint hint!

Room inside

Here you can see that there is a nice bit of room between the turbine and the fairing. The airspace should help in the heat dissipation, but there will also be heat shielding material right here to combat the intense heat of the turbine.

Air intake

Again, it is just so cool to actually see the air intake of the jet sitting inside of the fairings, and know that I will soon be riding this beast around with the whine only a jet can make. A close look at the mounting plate that attaches to the front of the engine will show that the mounting holes have been modified slightly to become slots so that the engine can be rotated for the best fit.

Windscreen

And here it is with the windscreen on. Not much really, but it does give a nice little clear bubble on the front. The more pieces I add, the more it looks like a whole bike again. I am looking forward to opening this thing up and seeing how fast I can go with it, until I get scared and back off the throttle at some point that is!

Looking complete

After all of the pre fitting, I finally removed the fairings and cleaned up all the cuts, being sure to round over all the edges to look like the factory cut edges. It has certainly come a long way from the beginning, and there are only a few more hurdles to jump before I can officially start her up with the jet inside.

Another update in the bag, and one step closer to the finished bike. Next up is the fabrication of the exhaust, the mounts for the CO2 bottles, and a few more surprises. Keep checking in for more, and as always please help support the site with your donations and "clicks for the cause". We appreciate all our viewers, and are proud that the military personnel to whom this bike build is dedicated are getting the opportunity to view the site. Until next time friends!

Russ W. Moore
and
The Bad Brothers Racing Build Team

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