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General Topics/Tech TipsDiscussion on break in periods, rider comfort, seats and pad suggestions. Tech tips as they become available will be posted here.
Full face helmet? If so, the key is to get the helmet in clean air (meaning laminar flow, no turbulence). The air stream should hit you on the forehead basically
To get clean flow, you want an aerodynamic windscreen. Check out California Scientific, that's what they do.
Sometimes you can make "barn door" or worse (the lip makes it worse) windscreens work by raking them WAY back. Remember, it should be pointing at your forehead, so, way back. Easier to just buy one designed for full face helmets tho
If you're using a 3/4 or no helmet at all, I'm not sure what to tell you
Like this Small windscreen on my old LR, raked WAY back Cartoon of what i think might be happening. Sounds like you want to get rid of the vortex coming off the upper edge of the windscreen (red). Many people are bothered by the one coming off the bottom (green) and install "fangs" to block that. My experience was, if you get red of the red one with an aerodynamic windscreen, you don't have to worry about the green one. Note how the direction of flow over the chin bar changes directions; I think that's what causes the "paint can shaker" effect
New Mod. Trimmed the 3" "curl" off the top of the windshield and installed a adjustable vent - a XMT-MOTO New Style Windshield Fresh Air Vent Clear For Honda Goldwing GL1800 2004-2016. Seems to greatly reduce headshake half open at highway speed. Took a few hours of cutting and filing but well worth the $25. Problem solved
So..... you cut the windshield more....took the curve completely out. Then installed a Honda part? A HONDA PART?! How could you?! Ok, well actually that was a really clever idea and, hopefully, a solution to your problem. I would look at that and ask "where the hell did you buy that and does it work? That is cool!" That's a great thing about us bike guys....we can think out of the box and find a solution to a problem!!! Pretty cool! Good thinking! Let us know how things really work after some rides.
On my 98 I had to cut 2 inches off an aftermarket 9 " screen to get rid of the buffetting. I also had previously installed the fork lowers and they helped somewhat, but cutting the screen was the only thing that worked for me. I wear a full face helmet and get a few more bugs and lots more wind now, but no head shaking. Often shorter works better, but there is always a trade off. The stock HD screen for this bike is about 12", and I had to look through it. It had buffetting issues as well, but I didn't want to cut it, so I got an aftermarket windshield to play with.
The vents in the windshield are a good way to go if you can make them work in your windshield. Also Laminar Lip add on works well in most cases. The cause of all the buffetting is the low pressure area behind the screen/windshield. Air either from above, below or the sides is going to fill that low pressure and that causes buffetting. You have to figure out where the wind is coming from that is causing your buffetting. Hand guards and mirrors can also add to the buffetting.
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