Am I missing something? I'm a total hack in the garage, but w/ Carlos' effort in writing up directions I thought I could handle it.

Dove in this morning and noticed a tube I had to disconnect from what looked like the evap canister under the tank. Since I'm a hack, I have to follow directions to a tee, so this naturally set me back a few minutes. :???: I read and reread Carlos' writeup and no mention of the tube. I gambled and disconnected this tube. No apparent problems like fuel spilling everywhere so..... :grin:

O.K.-so I have the tank propped up and proceed to take off the airbox cover and temp sensor. Then I remove velocity stacks. Then I removed bolts holding coils. Removed air filter element and then tried to remove air box to gain access to plugs. This is where I ran into problems. The air intakes, and from what I could tell at least two hoses prevented the airbox from removal. As far as I could tell, I would have had to remove the fairings/ and or front cowl to even attempt to get the airbox out. Not to mention I had to partially remove my left fairing to get the bolts back into the coil brackets. That is a very tight fit, and then when you drop a bolt into the abyss...forget it. :mad:

At least I was able to replace the air cleaner element. That thing was dirty as hell. Even a dead wasp was in my box...uhemm...airbox. :oops: Couldn't even see through it holding it up to the sun.

So in conclusion, at least my stock plugs are Iridium tipped so at 11K it's probably not an issue I need to deal w/ promptly.

Lastly, I'm guessing Carlos didn't mention the extra tubes/hoses because his is a 49-stater. The airducts have to be different after '00 or on Cali bikes, because there was no way in hell that box was coming out.

Heading out up the coast tomorrow. :grin: Pics will follow.

That's a California "feature."

If your problem was with the ram air ducts, they just pop out of the airbox. That hasn't changed since FI was introduced. But anyway, someone else said the interval on the Iridium plugs is 32k, so you're fine.

:pointup: "when you drop your bolts into the abyss, forget it".

You made me spit up my coffee on that one. I do that shit all
the time.

Some people are natural mechanics, the rest of us are great beer holders.

The ducts were so far into the box, that thing wasn't moving. I could barely wiggle the airbox, even after the coils were removed.

I guess I just wasn't being forceful enough.

Thanks again Carlos for taking your time to make the write-up. I wouldn't even have attempted this w/out it. I still feel pretty good for getting as far as I did w/out screwing anything up.

Thanks again,

Lance

I did drop one of those funky coil nuts into the abys. Lord knows where it is now.

You need to pull up the rear of the airbox and wiggle it back, freeing the tubes as you go. It's annoying (and worse to put them back on), but not that bad.

... and to think when I did it, I just removed the top vinyl covers (like 3 screws each side). After that, it came right out.