The garage is all empty, now the car’s up at Andy’s having its exhaust fitted. OK, there’s still a Fury there but I’m ignoring that.
However, that gave me a chance to tidy the place up a bit and then set about messing it up again.
The first such tactic was to modify the airbox so 
that I could get air into the top, rather than the bottom, of it. First up I drilled a couple of holes in the top of the airbox and then (plastic) welded the inlet ducts that are attached to the (normal) bottom of the air filters into the top of the airbox, as in the photo.
Yeah, it looks a bit messy in the photo, but that’s because of the melted polypropylene. I think it’ll work OK. The problem now is how to get the air into the filters. I’ve been wondering how to do this for a while now. One possibility is just to run air from a couple of ducts, and I’ve got these rather nice spun aluminium air inlets (as in the 
photo), down a tube directly into each air filter. The alternative is to make a diffusing inlet, sticking up from the airbox in the usual fashion.
The problem with the former is that I need to make some way of attaching some 65mm ducting, which is essentially the diameter of the air filter and the duct, to the end of the filter. Perhaps I could make some sort of adapter from some polypropylene sheet, suitably heated so it softens? I’ll give that a go, I think.
One advantage of having an empty garage is that I can sort out the bodywork. The first 
thing to do with this is to fill all the holes created by the aluminium I used to stretch it a while ago. Here’s one of the sidepods which is just about done now. Unfortunately, the other sidepod is with Andy as he needs it to see where the silencer can go.
As you can see, I didn’t make the gelcoat here thick enough as I’ve ground all the way through it while rubbing it down. Doooh. It’s still pretty smooth though so, hopefully, with the addition of some hi-build primer, it’ll be OK.
However, with luck I can get the tub done as well, and I might even get around to splashing some paint around. After a huge amount of thought I’ve decided to stick to the Tim standard colours of red and, perhaps, yellow. If only because I’ve still got a decent supply of these. Problem is, I hate how much dust you create by painting things, it gets everywhere.
You’re welcome to use the spray booth for spraying. Just make sure you remove Zena’s Ginetta’s bonnet from there first…
Thanks, but I can’t be ar$ed to drag the bodywork all the way to the sheds. I shall just stink the house out instead. In fact, I’ve started doing so…
Well, yes, it is a bit of an arse dragging bodywork over there. Mind you, it’s also a total arse (I find) to have to spend hours cleaning overspray off everything in the garage… 😉
Have you thought about making a temporary spray booth using polythene sheet? A few lengths of wood and some polythene makes a surprisingly effective dust-containment shell. Doesn’t have to be particularly sturdy as it’s only got to support its own weight.
I had wondered about it, but decided not to; again. It’s not too big a pain, a blast with an air jet tends to move most of the dust. Of course, you have to do it quite a few times and use the vacuum cleaner a lot. But, as I use that at the end of every garage session that isn’t too big a drag.
Tim,
Nice progress. I have a spare cbr1000rr airbox if you want it (no charge). I’m not suggesting there is anything imperfect about your existing one, but its always good to have a spare. Needed it for the secondary injectors, so the rest will end up as landfill.
If you want it then drop me your address and I’ll put it in the post.
Matt
If you’ve got a spare one, that’d be really useful. I’ll send you my address.
Tim