Hello,

Can anyone tell me what the purpose of the - for lack of a better word - "cheek" vents on our front fairings are for? (see pic)

As far as I can tell, what they direct air to is - our knees. It seems to me that this is functionally no different from if there was simply empty space there - i.e. all they do vs. if they were not there is "look cool." Which I think they do very well, FWIW.

The reason I ask is I'm running some auxiliary wiring (headlamp relay, gps & valentine power) and mounting a couple PowerLet sockets, those ducts seem to be an ideal location for both functions. I just want to double-check that I'm not doing something galactically stupid before I do it.

(note: image is deliberately over-exposed to highlight the opening)

 

Go right ahead as they are just cosmetic. I removed mine about 11yrs ago now as the rattled. I just removed them and left the openings in the fairing alone and saw no difference at all.

 

guess I'll be ditching mine then, another slight (but cumulative) weight saving.....

 

I mounted my voltage regulator/rectifier on an aluminum plate up there. Seems to work well at keeping it cool.