Dyno Day

When I came back from Bonneville last year with a hole in the rear piston I had no idea the extent or length of the re-build that fate had in store for me. The hole in the piston was just the beginning. I could bore you to death with everything that was changed, cut-off, re-welded, re-engineered, re-thought and or completely re-done. MANY hurdles, everything from a trans that was ready to explode to a 9" long crack in the right-side engine case that left us all reeling. But thanks to a bunch of very good friends stepping up with much needed parts, and a TON of thanks to Lurch and his son Tommy from Motor-Tec for coming up with a engineering strategy and then expertly implementing the entire build we have arrived at the launching pad with a potent panhead. In the first dyno runs we are already seeing the potential and we still have more RPM's and sprocket's to play with - the motor is not even broken in. We just missed Speed Week this year but we will be at Bonneville this coming August and we may even do some shake-down runs at this new track south of Toledo that the ECTA is going to start using in the spring. I'm STOKED and would like to thank some people - I can't stress enough how good it was working with Tommy and Lurch. They were the glue when I'd lose faith. I'm pretty convinced when it comes to the Milwaukee iron Lurch is a genius who proved to never be out of good ideas. I hope I get to continue working with these guys on a couple other projects I have brewing right now. Another local genius I need to thank is Slo-Joe Gardella who did some brilliant machine work on a mismatched engine case that would have sent most guys running for the hills. Picky Jim from Idaho dug up a very clean engine case out of his stash for Joe to grind away on - thanks Jim. Another key contributor is John from The Shop in Brownstown who supplied most of everything else needed. My longtime skateboarding buddy Steve fabricated the rear fender and it's mounting system to withstand 100mph plus runs on that very unfriendly Utah salt. Last but most definitely not least is Dwayne from the metal shop here at work who did a ton of stuff for me on the last two builds - another genius who turns my crazy ideas into reality and never backs down from a challenge. So thanks to all these top-shelf guys and anyone else who I may have left out. Now it's just a matter of waiting for August and our third shot at the record books.