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Scotch, you give the rest of us inspiration to do better work! I was making parts today to mount my sidecar, and at one point I caught myself saying, "Oh, that's good enough!". I was grinding down a weld and there were three tiny undercut dimples left. They were so small that I'm sure the powdercoat would have filled them, but then your level of work came to mind and I said, "Nope! Gotta make it perfect!".

I love the nickel-plated frame, too! Back in the early '60's we got really tired of re-painting, so we nickel-plated all of our racing karts so that when another one would bump us with their tire, all we would have to do is take some fine steel wool to remove the rubber scuffs. Just like new again! We left just the copper plating stage on one of them, then everything else was painted candy red. You've given me ideas for when I remake my '85 Voyager into a street fighter hack rig. Copper frame, lots of black anodized parts, and a super-deep wine red paint on the tank and fairing.

Holy mackerel! The custom intake is a precision piece of design and fabrication. But, the photos of the entire motorcycle are fantastic. You have given me "nickel frame envy".

That is one nicely modded 1300 Every time you go back & look at it you notice stuff that you missed the first time

Thanks everyone ! Appreciate the comments.

Have had several opportunities now to run the bike and evaluate the intake/K&N filter. No increase in intake-noise. Throttle response is as brisk as it was with the OEM air box. Very strong pull through the entire RPM power-band. No adverse or noticeable differences in off throttle. No re-jetting was required as the spark-plugs color did not change. I found this a bit of a surprise, albeit a welcome one!
From a power point of view there is no significant difference in performance. I would like to suggest there is a perceivable increase in "Pull" but there is always a bias involved when we make mods like this and it's very easy to allow ourselves to let this bias affect our evaluation. The only way to truly evaluate the intake would be on a Dyno but I do not have that availability. (And probably wouldn't bother). Given the enormous amount of time that it took to make the intake I can only add that because the bike performs very well with it, I'm keeping it installed. I am definitely pleased with both the performance and appearance.
This may be a good example of how "flexible" the Mikuni BSW32 carbs are to various intake systems/mods inclusive of significant changes to "air-system " volumes and flow. Again: Only a Dyno test could measure these various changes against the OEM air systems. For those who have made there own intake mods, the final determination of success will be based solely on whether the bike experiences significant detrimental issues or measurable positive attributes regarding starting/idling (not likely with any mod), and a clean/strong "transition" into the high-speed jetting which would suggest no air-flow issues. Performance in the power-band and at speed which would indicate smooth air-flow delivery and correct jetting.
This project was rewarding and enlightening. I'll supplement this topic with anything that seems relevant if and when there's something to add.

Ride safe ! scotch

My bike dressed as B2 again running for the first time in ages with my 3 pod filter set up

Z1300 running again

It's still a bit rough and I found that I couldn't adjust the idle mixture on #6

Will try a new set of plugs this weekend