Horn upgrade

[halfSpinDoctor]

I have two Freeway Blasters I bought for my Ninja 250 back in 2012, and 9 years later I'm finally going to give them a home! I'm going to go with Dave's approach and put them in the part of the front cowling that bulges out (2013 NC here), but maybe down a bit lower. I am going to clamp them to one of the tubes that holds the fairing, rather than screw them into plastic. I got a good look in there while I was changing out the air filter.

 

[halfSpinDoctor]

Update: Finished up the wiring for my new (old) FIAMM Freeway Blaster Horns.

I put the Freeway Blasters on a delay timer relay. This way, I can perform a short 'beep-beep' with the smaller Hella Horn pair I have installed down in the stock location, and if I press and hold after about 0.33 s, the relay will kick in and activate the Freeway Blaster horns, fed directly from the batt.

All pictures are pending final testing, after which I will cover over terminals with some heat shrink once I confirm everything is working and routed the way I like.

First, similar to dduelin, I tap into the stock horn wiring for a signal to the relay. In this case, I already had a splitter cable for the Hella Horns, so I just crimped the wires into this.

The two black wires run back up to the battery box (one for running light, one for horn). Light gauge wire is used, as this is just a signal for the relay, which draws just a couple mA:

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5/8" Rubberized clamps and M6 nylock nuts are used to clamp the two Freeway Blaster horns into the inside of the cowl bulge on either side. The output of the horn points down and forward out of the front. Plenty of clearance on both sides with the fork tubes:

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Wiring is done with 16 AWG marine wire. I don't love the white sheath, but it is what I had. In retrospect, the runs are so short that individual unsheathed wire would have been fine:

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Finally, delay relay from Amazon. Not pictured is the final wiring (need to clean up...). Wired directly into the battery with 16 gauge wire, 10 amp fuse inline:

Amazon.com : UCTRONICS DC 12V Time Delay Relay Module with Plastic Enclosure, On Delay and Off Delay for Automobile, Raspberry Pi, Industrial Control, and Other Electronic Projects : Electronics

Amazon.com : UCTRONICS DC 12V Time Delay Relay Module with Plastic Enclosure, On Delay and Off Delay for Automobile, Raspberry Pi, Industrial Control, and Other Electronic Projects : Electronics

www.amazon.com

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[bigbird]

Is there enough clearance to rotate that DRL for forward facing orientation?
In my neck of the woods an add-on side facing running light is a no-no.

 

[halfSpinDoctor]

Is there enough clearance to rotate that DRL for forward facing orientation?

I'll go out and check later. I think on this side, the horn would interfere with it facing forwards, and on the left side, the coolant hose to the radiator blocks it.

In my neck of the woods an add-on side facing running light is a no-no.

Oh, interesting. These are amber lights, btw, they just have clear lenses. Wisconsin allows side marker lights to be installed, amber towards the front, red towards the rear, with certain restrictions on height and mounting location. WI Stat § 347.17 and § 347.18.

 

[bigbird]

I'll go out and check later. I think on this side, the horn would interfere with it facing forwards, and on the left side, the coolant hose to the radiator blocks it.


Oh, interesting. These are amber lights, btw, they just have clear lenses. Wisconsin allows side marker lights to be installed, amber towards the front, red towards the rear, with certain restrictions on height and mounting location. WI Stat § 347.17 and § 347.18.

Any reason you didn't mount your DRL's on the lower fork tubes?

 

[halfSpinDoctor]

Um, no real reason in particular. This seemed like a natural location for the lights.

I don't think I would want to deal with the extra slack in the wiring needed on the forks. It would look a bit more messy.

If anything, I wanted lights that point directly out to the side, and slightly back, for merging traffic. From the front, I think the running lights in the turn signals are pretty adequate for visibility (esp. after installing brighter LED bulbs in them), but the amount of light that comes off the side of the bike is lacking.

 

[halfSpinDoctor]

Is there enough clearance to rotate that DRL for forward facing orientation?

There is enough clearance to mount them, but from the vantage point of a car or pedestrian, the radiator would block most of the light.