I'm about to install one of the Fiamm Fwy Blasters. wrightme, as your picture shows, you have it pointing straight up. Aside from the water issue, that doesn't really seem like the ideal position. It would seem to direct the sound inside the fairing. I would think you'd want it pointing forward as much as possible.
Has anyone mounted this in any other way?
In a word, yes.
In many words:
This thread inspired me to try the Fiamm Freeway blaster. I have known since I got my FZ6 that the stock horn is pretty weak. I read many posts here about its weakness and the upgrade alternatives. The consensus seemed to be that the best (i.e. loudest) option would be the Stebel Nautilus. I kept meaning to get one, but while it is certainly a doable mod, it does have some complicating factors. As a result of the perceived complications, I kept on putting it off, which left me with a wimpy roadrunner-esque "meep-meep" horn. The impression I got was that while not as loud as the Stebel, the Fiamm Freeway Blaster is still much better than the stock horn and can be powered directly from the existing wires, so I decided to give it a try. Easiest option for purchase was to just go to Amazon.com and order one. It was only about $15 and I got free super saver shipping since with other stuff the total order was over $25, and a couple of days later it arrived at my door. The installation process took a little thinking and a few trips between garage and basement for cutting and adjusting, but was actually pretty easy. Here’s the process I used, boiled down to the essentials:
1. Remove the 10 mm bolt holding the stock horn to the bike, unplug the wires and remove from bike.
2. Remove the bracket from the stock horn and hold it on the bracket that came with the Fiamm, with the bracket-to-horn mounting holes aligned. Then mark the locations of the bracket-to-bike mounting hole and the small slot in the stock bracket onto the Fiamm bracket.
3. Drill two holes in the Fiamm bracket (one to be the mounting hole, the other to be the slot) and cut it down with a hack saw.
4. Bend the Fiamm bracket to angle the horn downward. This bend combined with the angle of the mounting location on the bike caused the Fiamm to be basically level and “fire” forward from just below the bottom of the fairing. I don’t know the exact angle, maybe 30 degrees, but the bracket needs to be bent such that you can just barely get the 10 mm mounting bolt through the new bracket with the bracket mounted on the horn.
5. To get the stock wires to reach, I had to bend the connector tabs on the horn at more of a right angle to the horn, and cut off one of the two tie wraps that held the stock wires to the fork tube to free up a little slack.
Conclusion– The Fiamm is a
HUGE improvement over the stock horn. It is louder, and has a much deeper, more authoritative tone. Even if you think you will someday do the Stebel, if you are not doing it
right now, my advice would be to get the Fiamm Freeway blaster and install it as described above. It is cheap enough to buy and easy enough to install that you can consider it a throwaway.
The attached pictures below show how I cut and bent the bracket, with a couple of photos of how it looks on the bike.