Belly Pan Revisited

I really liked the solution I came up with for a fluid containing belly pan for the Ninja race bike. It was simple, cheap and didn't require any permanent modifications to the bike. While it worked in all those ways and was to the letter of the race regs, I always had this nagging feeling that I might take some flak during tech for not having more coverage on the sides of the engine. My original idea was to modify the stock lower fairing. Then I went with the cake pan. Now I'm thinking to combine the two.

Here I have marked the cake pan belly pan for cutting. Basically I am going to use the bottom of the cake pan to fill in the holes in the bottom of the lower fairing. I will also use some of the vertical sides of the cake pan to make the lower fairing fully fluid containing. I laid the pan against the lower fairing and marked what I need to remove and what will stay. I will either glue, screw or rivet the metal to the plastic. I will cut the pan with my jigsaw or an angle grinder being sure to leave plenty of extra material so that I can trim it back after the final fitting.

I roughly trimmed the lower fairing air intakes so I could have a flush hole to close up by riveting some sheet metal to the inside of the plastic. I need to get some sanding drums for my Dremel tool to clean up the rough edges. I won't try to blend these in 100% with body filler, but I will close them up and eventually paint the lower fairing after some sticker removal and prep to make the whole thing less obvious.

I need to close up the front or most of it. I will use the mesh intake screen as a template and attach the sheet metal from the inside. Again, after putting in all of the metal, sanding and painting, it should look very presentable, though I may do a few track days before I get all of the pretty paint work done.

I needed to get the slip on header clamp bolts out of the way so that I could close up the rear of the lower fairing. I rotated the clamps and changed them out for some shorter bolts so that they don't get in the way. Now I have a clean area to ensure that the vertical end of the cake pan can form and fluid dam at the rear of the pan.

My list of to do items includes the belly pan, a radiator overflow tank and getting one of my friends with some track time under his belt to inspect the bike with me so that I can double check my work. I am really am very close to getting my first track day in. I need to start combing through the internet to find a track that works the best logistically with all the other requirements that life throws at me. I can't wait!

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