Thursday, July 14, 2016

Installing a Shockwave Horn on an SV650

Banshee Shockwave

Update: One of these caught fire. I have since removed them from all of my vehicles.

The shockwave is the newest horn from Screaming Banshee. It’s smaller, lighter, cheaper, and most importantly, louder!

I’ve had very loud horns on my motorcycles and cars before. They were kind of frustrating since they only had one sound: crazy loud. One of the things I like about the shockwave is how it has two loudness modes. The first with a quick tap is normal 100db, but with a long press it is the full 123db! Nice to say “hi” and another to say “look out!”.

It was easy to install this horn on my SV650 and it is MUCH louder than the stock. I ended up putting it on the left side of the engine since there isn’t room above the fender in the stock location.

These are the tools I used to install the horn on my SV650.

Banshee Shockwave

Banshee Shockwave

The contents of the Shockwave box. The horn itself, connecting wires, connectors, and mounting hardware. My box included an extra mounting bracket shown on the left.

Banshee Shockwave

Here is a close-up of the back of the horn with the dipswitches for changing the function of the horn and the 25amp fuse.

Banshee Shockwave

1) Remove the side panels with the 4mm hex

Banshee Shockwave

2) Remove the two seat bolts with the 6mm hex

Banshee Shockwave

3) Disconnect the battery with the Philips screwdriver

Banshee Shockwave

4) With the 6mm hex, remove this bolt on the left side of the frame.

Banshee Shockwave

5) Crimp the round connector onto the black ground wire.

Banshee Shockwave

6) Put the ground wire on the inside of the bolt and horn mount, so it connects to the raw metal of the frame.

Banshee Shockwave

7) Use the short mounting bracket and the blue loctite.

Banshee Shockwave

8) Put the mounting bolt and washers on the other end using loctite again. Tighten the bolt in the frame.

Banshee Shockwave

9) Mount the horn on the bolt and make sure there is a gap between the horn and the engine. Tighten with the 14mm wrench.

Banshee Shockwave

10) Attach the wiring harness to the back of the horn.

Banshee Shockwave

11) Crimp the flat connectors onto the end of the blue wires.

Banshee Shockwave

12) Route the blue wires around the frame and radiator to the front of the bike where the stock horn is plugged in. Detach the wires from the stock horn and connect to the new blue wires.

Banshee Shockwave

13) Crimp the other round connector onto the red wire. Route the red wire along the frame back to the battery.

Banshee Shockwave

14) Connect the red wire to the battery and tighten. Reconnect the negative side of the battery.

15) Reattach the seat and side panels.

Banshee Shockwave

16) Use the zip ties to secure the cables to the bike. I attached mine to the frame.

Banshee Shockwave

17) Test your new horn and use it wisely!

Banshee Shockwave

The total install time was less than 20 minutes. It was one of the easiest mods to my SV yet.

While I received this horn as a demo unit in exchange for this post, I liked it so much I bought another one.

Get your horn at: https://screaming-banshee.com/ 

Until July 20, 2016, there is also a Kickstarter going at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/846667950/shockwave-the-first-smart-motorcycle-warning-syste

8 comments:

  1. Good write-up Chris. I've not had much luck with the durability of the red plastic material on the flat connectors myself, they tend to move after a bit, exposing the wire. I used the Stebel horns before, quite loud but they didn't last long for me. Hope this horn works out good and reliable for you.

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    1. The stebel are loud. I had them on my BMW. This one is louder which I didn't think was really possible. I hope it is reliable as well. The feature I like it a normal and loud horn in the same install.

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  2. I have the older, Kickstarter version of the horn. It still requires the original horn and adds a small electronic module and the air horn. It was sitting on a shelf for years and is half installed on the Ural (for the last year or so). Maybe I should go out and finish the install…

    Nice write up and a clean installation.

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    1. Wow, you are almost as bad as me for installing stuff. Maybe 2016 will be your year to finish it.

      Thanks. I'm glad you liked the write up.

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  3. I have considered a louder horn myself and were looking at this same make and model. Thanks for the review. :)

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  4. I've had a Stebel on my V-Strom since Pat Hahn and I wrote up a horn test article for the MMSC's website in 2008. For what it's worth, it's been perfectly reliable for almost 60k miles. I don't use it much, though, because horns are like loud pipes: inaudible under most conditions. Pat and I found that all of the horns we tested worked fine right next to the driver's window in moderate traffic, but from behind or in front of the vehicle you couldn't hear the damn things inside a 1998 Ford Escort station wagon. A real car would be far better sound-proofed than my old Escort. If you are counting on noise for safety, you might as well carry a rabbit's foot, too. Consider how well the rabbit's foot worked for the rabbit.

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    Replies
    1. Your post convinced me that a loud horn may not help much when dealing with vehicles.

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