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Adding a GPS to your Honda Silverwing

By Thom | August 15, 2009

How to ditch those maps and stop worrying about making that next turn.

I was lucky to acquire a Garmin Streepilot 2720 for my birthday this past year. I had done a lot of research on what type of GPS to buy that would be compatible with my car and motorcycle. I decided on the 2720 because it was waterproof, easy to mount, had a lot of reviews by other motorcycle riders and was easy to interface with a computer. It has turned out to be a good choice so far.

Streetpilot  with homemade sun cover

I enjoy the ability to upload maps that I’ve created on my computer to the GPS and also incorporate other points of interest (POI’s).

These POI’s are worth their weight in gold in terms of being able to locate things quickly and easily. So far on my GPS I have loaded: All Honda dealers in the U.S., wayside rest stops along major interstates, all Flying J gas stations, all Speedy America gas stations, and Roadside America’s attractions. These are in addition to the POI’s that the Garmin came preloaded with.

I decided to mount the GPS to my Silverwing using a RAM mount from Cycle Gadgets I went with a RAM mount because it allows for a lot of adjustability in terms of moving the GPS and also is very secure. So far, I’m very happy with my purchase – the GPS is easy to take on/off and I’ve never had a moment when I was worried about it coming off. I put a little green strip of ‘rubber bumpy thing that prevents a rug from moving around’ in the RAM clamp to prevent it from rotating.

RAM Mount

The mount was the easy part, but I also needed to get power to the GPS. The 2720 does not have an internal battery, so if you don’t have power you don’t have any navigation. At first, I thought this would be a problem, but I have yet to come across a time when I couldn’t plug it in.

I decided that I wanted to go straight to the battery with the power supply, that way I didn’t have to worry about splicing anything into the bike’s power supply and it also allowed me to run the GPS when the bike was powered off.

I used 16 guage wire, making my own wiring harness. The harness incorporated a SAE waterproof connector, wire, terminals, and a cigarette lighter extension plug. The extension is very simple to wire, just look for continuity (using the Ohms setting on your multimeter) between the center point (down inside the female end) and one wire. That wire will be your ‘hot’ side.

My custom wiring harness – note the ability to split the harness when the fairing is removed using the SAE connector

Measuring the resistance to make sure I’ve got the right wire going to the positive side of the battery

I chose to keep Garmin’s original power supply that comes with the GPS because I didn’t want to shell out the extra cost. It would be best to buy one, but this system works for now.

- I should note that I do cover up the external speaker with a zip lock bag when I am riding in the rain. The speaker is also located inside the fairing’s pocket, so it doesn’t tend to get a lot of rain on it anyways. I’m sure the speaker is water resistant, but I don’t really want to take a chance.

Finished Product – I drilled a small hole in the fairing pocket to allow the wire to pass through and split loomed the whole thing

Tucked neatly inside the pocket on the bike

From the pocket, the wire runs down through the fairing outlet by the other electrical connectors and along the bike’s frame to the battery.

- Having the coiled extension also allows me to move the whole set up into the tank bag to charge my cell phone.

Picture of the GPS setup when viewed from the rider’s seat.

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