While poking around under the tank doing my plug wire hack, I became annoyed by the fact that the coils sit above/behind the radiator and directly above the thermostat. The coil cluster reminded me of a pig roasting on a spit -NOT GOOD!
So, I decided to make a simple coil heat shield from some type of foam insulation. Initially I was going to use a chunk of styrofoam that was laying around in the garage but decided it was too brittle and fuzzy to bother with. I later decided to use rigid insulation cut from a scrap I had. This is the stuff some people call 'DOW board' and is often used in home building. The piece I used was the garden variety 1" thick stuff. This hack requires that you remove the coils and the rear 'dirt shield' that sits behinds the coils/thermostat housing. This is a good time to inspect/clean the ground at the coil mount or better yet, ADD an additional (redundant) ground - see my post on this in sheppola's thread : viewtopic.php?f=8&t=28
So, for all you impatient bastiges like me, here' a couple of crappy before and after pics;
Before: Notice the top of T-stat housing where upr rad hose attaches - this is the taget area
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)After:
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)First image shows the space I'm talking about. You can see the back of the T-stat housing (look for the black bypass hose). The shield will slide in from where the camera is positioned in this image - just above the right side carb manifold. Not a lot of room to work in, so a little patience will go a long way here.
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)Here's the foam bit I started with. Not good - too brittle and a PITA to deal with fuzzies.
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)So my first step after removing the coils and stuff, was to make a cardboard template. You can see in the first shot that I started the template with 'horns' that would fit around the front neck gusset area to seal hot air flowing up from radiator and over the top of engine and coils. I later removed the horns from the template because I discovered it was nearly impossible to get the foam piece up into place with them still attached. Other pics show template trimmed into a rectangle and positioned in place below the coil mount area (sorry for fuzzy pics). New horn bits were later made to fill gaps on both sides of the frame neck gusset area.
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)Notice the notch in the template to clear the flange at the rear of the neck gusset and the horns have been trimmed away.
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)Rigid foam board shield - note the angle cut on the leading edge to match the rear face of the neck gusset
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)Shield in place with cardboard template for the right side filler 'horn' being fitting. NOTE: both foam filler 'horns' end up fitting tightly and for additional insurance against movement due to wind pressure, I glued them to the side tubes and neck gusset with 3M weatherstrip adhesive).
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)Here's a shot of the shield in place. This is shot from the front of the bike looking straight down behind the handle bars.
Just behind and below the round petrol tank cushions, you see the 'horn' fillers along both sides of the neck gusset - the coils block the view of the main shield below. Also notice the final routing of the main harness and plug wires. you may have to move these around to suit your taste. I actually hacked a piece out of the trinagular frame gusset on the left side so that the harness would be tucked up and run along the left frame tube all the way back. This of course is different on CX models.
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)So there you have it, is it better or is it worse? You decide....
Cheers!
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