Vetter Quicksilver Fairing

VETTER QUICKSILVER FAIRING

EVALUATION

Fairings are wonderful devices that can either provide lots of weather protection and change the shape of a motorcycle significantly or offer little protection and maybe even enhance the appearance of a bike. The perfect fairing, which we’ve all designed in our mind’s eye, would be light in weight, provide perfect weather protection, be small and unobtrusive yet have lots of cargo room, be easy to install yet mount solidly and take away nothing from handling.

Now that we’ve tested the Vetter Quicksilver, we can say the perfect fairing has still not been built, though the Quicksilver offers a different mixture of features and some new benefits we haven’t seen before.

Until now there have been five kinds of fairings. The handlebar-mounted fairings were available in small cafe racer shapes that offered little protection, or as clear plexiglass models that were essentially flat but provided good protection, or as versions of the original Wixom Bros. Ranger, slightly shaped but not at all sporting. Then there were the frame mount fairings, most of which were huge Windjammertypes, though a few alternative shapes were offered, most of them styled after full roadrace fairings.

What the Quicksilver offers is compact size, clean shape, easy mounting, moderate protection, a little storage room and an attractive price. That’s a tempting combination.

Weighed as it was tested, our Quicksilver, with mounting hardware, tall windscreen and the faceplate around the headlight weighed in at 16 lb. Subtract a couple of pounds for the headlight and shell that get removed and the total weight added to a motorcycle is no more than 14 lb. That makes the Quicksilver the lightest frame-mount fairing we’ve evaluated, about half the weight of an average largesize frame mount fairing.

Mounting a fairing is a job that ranks way down below taking put the garbage and in the neighborhood with fixing stopped-up plumbing. It ain’t fun. Usually there are one-size-don’t-quite-fit-all brackets that can, with a little modification, do the job as long as you don’t mind having the fairing listing to one side.

Now that you know how much we looked forward to mounting a fairing, let us say the Quicksilver was disgustingly simple and easy to mount. The Quicksilver is, without a doubt, the easiest to attach frame-mount fairing ever made. Beginning with a couple of unopened boxes and an unopened six pack, the fairing was completely mounted in less than an hour and before the second can was emptied. That’s a record. Normal time is half a day, two six packs and five knuckles.

First off, the instructions are clear and simple and correct. They may go a little far, in fact, as we really didn’t need to remove the horns on the KZ550 to install the mounting bracket, though that did make the job easier.

Wiring the Quicksilver was simple because the fairing’s wiring loom has plug-in connectors that pop right into the bike’s wiring harness. Everything is color coded and marked in the instructions so there’s no problem. Only four bolts hold the light fairing on the mounting bracket and another four bolts hold the windshield onto the fairing; all are easily accessible without special toots or vocabulary. Even turn signals are included with the fairing so the bike’s signals don’t have to be modified to fit.

When we were done with the evaluation the fairing was removed and the bike restored to stock condition in 15 min., making it a simple matter to convert to a faired bike, once the mounting procedure is learned.

As mounted on the KZ550, the Quicksilver was unusually low. This, along with the light weight, minimized handling effect on the motorcycle, but also affected rider protection. Even with the tall windscreen there was considerable buffeting around a rider’s head and shoulders, though excellent protection was provided from his knees to the mid-section. The windscreen is narrow, too, further limiting wind protection.

What the Quicksilver does is provide three-quarters of the protection of a large fairing, while only being half as big. There are optional hand guards that snap on to the edges of the fairing body, extending coverage of the fairing, though the standard model’s protection limitations are most evident around the head.

Handling effects of the fairing were extremely slight. Normally a frame mount fairing adds enough weight high and at the front of a motorcycle to change the feel of the bike completely. Not so with the Quicksilver. Adding the fairing to the KZ550 did nothing to interfere with the quick steering and light feel of the bike. And when the fairing was removed there was no feeling that an incredible burden had been removed.

The Quicksilver also offers small but useful storage compartments on either side, covered by upholstered snap-on covers. A rectangular sealed beam is included with the fairing, while a halögen headlight and a molded plastic shroud around the headlight are optional. The shroud considerably improves the fairing’s appearance.

What the Quicksilver looks like, is a wedge. It’s a relatively obtuse wedge but from the side there is the windshield side of the wedge and the lower edge of the wedge. The entire fairing has an economy of angles and corners and surfaces so that it looks sparse and simple. It detracts less from a motorcycle than the average touring fairing, though it doesn’t lend a sporting flair to a bike that a small quarter fairing does. Instead, it’s something in between, something we haven’t seen before.

It is, however, a compromise, and the touring rider on staff wouldn’t trade his full touring fairing for the Quicksilver and the sport-minded rider wouldn’t trade his small handlebar mount fairing for a Quicksilver. It is not everybody’s fairing. It is, though, a well made, ingenious and finely finished fairing that is especially well adapted to medium size motorcycles and we’re glad to see it on the market.

Without the optional handguards the fairing is only 25 in. wide, about 7 in. narrower than a standard width set of handlebars. The tallest windscreen is 21 in. tall and the way the fairing mounted on the Kawasaki it was easy to peer over the fairing without difficulty. The shorter windscreen was 17.5 in. tall and there’s an even shorter screen available. Because the wind protection was minimal, the taller screen stayed on the fairing during most of the test.

Equipped with the tallest screen there seemed to be negligible effects on the motorcycle’s performance compared to the unfaired bike. There was no change in fuel mileage. Comparing the fairing to an unfaired bike involves lots of variables, such as rider size and riding position, a prone position reducing wind drag, etc. And whether the largest or smallest windscreen were installed would affect the drag, too. Vetter Corp. is claiming some slight improvements in performance with a Quicksilver, which may be justified under certain conditions, but in our use there was little change in performance. Actually, not losing power and mileage while adding the wind protection is a good enough bargain.

Price of the Quicksilver is $ 199, in silver or black. Standard and short windshields are $14.50 and the tall shield is $19. The optional handguards cost $19.95. The quartz-halogen headlight is $37.25, and the mounting brackets cost $30.25 for most bikes and $41.95 for the CX500 or CB750.The Quicksilver is designed to fit most motorcycles from 400cc to 750cc.