Hi ..
After buying this fairly expensive bike, I find out it is a veritable oven to ride, even on mild days!! I thought it was just my black Aerostich on our first long ride on the bike, but the day after, I jumped on my 1978 BMW R100S, which has two huge, hot cylinders hanging right out there in front of my shins, and felt NO HEAT AT ALL (in the same outfit). Whether by design, or just dumb luck, BMW seems to have got it right on that bike.
On to the ST: I , of course, went right to the forum, and read everything available on it. I noted the wide variety of different "fixes" tried, and the different degrees of success. After reading it, I went for a long ride one-up to make sure it was really a problem, and for sure, it is. The front of the shins on my 'Stich were definitely warm to hot, and it seemed to get WORSE at speed.
I did find the main root cause on my particular machine. At speed, a low pressure area occurs right where my shins/calves are. The heat, coming off all the hot surfaces inside the fairing, exits at the opening for the head, pools right there, and forms a micro-climate unfit for human flesh. Immediately the application of the fairing deflectors seemed a good idea, but I'll test with some homemade plexi "wings" to make sure that that particular fairly expensive mod does what it is supposed to do! In looking at it, it appears to be a bit small to effect a large movement of air even at higher speeds, and appears to have more form than function.
Inner cowlings: I am going to remove these as well, and measure the heat both with and without. Some have expressed concern that cooling ability will be compromised, but I really don't think that'll be an issue. I want to remove them to replace the anemic horn anyway.
Throttle body sync: I have heard this can reduce the heat, but for the life of me, I don't see HOW. If someone can explain the rationale behind it, I'll go ahead and do it, but it does not seem logical to me.I have a shop manual on the way, and I generally do all my own work.
All in all, I love the bike..the handling is magnificent, the speed is amazing, but frankly, I think Honda dropped the ball design-wise on it. After adding an Ivan's FCE (139 + my labor), I am more than a bit disappointed- the "rideability" is not as good as my 35 year old Beemer! No, I'm not going to sell it right away, but I WILL be experimenting to find the best combo of heat dissipation tactics, and methods of "smoothing" it out.
