Custom Motorbike Airbox

When I was a kid my neighbour was custom building a motorcycle for himself. That bike had a carbon-skinned fuel tank. On seeing that, I was hooked on composites.

Since that day I was constantly thinking about working with carbon fibre, but for a long time, I could not get the material until it became more readily available. Around 2018, I started working with composites thanks to Easy Composites. They made it accessible so I was able to start making carbon-fibre motorcycle parts. I taught myself everything and the Easy Composites videos were a really big help in teaching the basic skills and methods used.

One of my favourite projects is this carbon fibre plenum airbox which was also an excellent learning experience. A customer from Canada contacted me to request that I make a custom-designed carbon fibre airbox for his Turbo Charged Honda Goldwing.

Only Easy Composites products were used for this build. The pattern was 3D printed in two halves and used to make the mould. The mould was made using the EG160 High Temperature Epoxy Tooling Gelcoat and the EMP160 High Temperature Epoxy Moulding Paste for the reinforcement. Once initially cured, the pattern was removed and the mould was post cured ready for use.

To withstand the load of operating under positive boost, the part was made with three layers of XC110 210g Twill 3K Prepreg and 2 layers of XC110 416g Prepreg. The two parts of the airbox were then trimmed and bolted together using a custom made cork gasket for sealing purposes.