HorsePower Builds

Episode Transcript

Hey, we got a couple of easy horsepower. How Tos?

That'll turn this Indian into a fearless street warrior

today on horsepower TV, it's a two wheel horsepower experience. You don't want to miss when we bought a ni

kit to an Indian motorcycle and make some unbelievable horsepower at the rear wheel.

We'll take you to the home of Boss Hawks, the biggest

maddest fastest street bike in the world.

I couldn't imagine riding anything else.

No, I mean, have to ride these. It's just,

just do my fun.

So hang on for horsepower TV.

Welcome to horsepower TV. Where today we've turned the shop into hog heaven with an assortment of show bikes and big VW

road bikes. Now mention the word V twin and most people naturally think of Harley,

but there's an old name, making a new comeback these days. The Indian.

Now, after more than 40 years in the happy hunting ground, hey, the company is on its way back with a couple of new models.

This one's called The Scout and it's a strip down, souped up V twin Thumper.

That's small on size, but big on performance. Now, it uses an 88 cubic inch SNS engine that's rated at 75 horsepower. And

hey, if you like a bike that handles halls and breaks with the best of them, then you might want to scout out one of these for yourself.

The chief is the other half of the war party. It's a fully dressed road bike. So it's bigger, heavier and more comfortable on longer trips. Now, it too has the SNS 88 cube engine. Well, I guess since it too makes 75 horsepower, just like the last one we can call it an honest engine.

Ok. Why don't you hit the trail there? Fork and tongue

since it is the heavier of the two bikes. Well, it could benefit the most from extra horsepower. Most of which we'll get from the nitro skit. We're gonna boat on later, but first we got a couple of tricks for you. That'll add 15 horses and will cost a dime.

All right, to validate our improvements. We're using this

dyno

Jet motorcycle,

dyno

that measures rear wheel horsepower. Pretty much like our in ground unit

that inertia drum. There is hooked to sensors that transmits rate of acceleration to our computer, which of course translates that into horsepower. Of course, as always we need to get a good baseline. So each day we get busy.

Well, how'd we do a little over 62 horsepower?

Good place to start.

You know, bikes are just like cars if you open up the respiratory tract. Well, they're gonna run just a little bit better

now, to give the old Indian here a little more breathing room, what we're gonna do is remove a restrictor plate from the carburetor and to do that, we first have to remove the air cleaner cover.

Then the air filter assembly

followed by the three bolts that hold the base plate of the air cleaner to the carburetor.

And finally the two bolts that attach the base to the head.

But now the restrictor is exposed and can be removed from the back of the plate.

Of course, we're gonna be pulling air a lot more efficiently through the carburetor now, so we need to rejet.

Now to do that, you need to remove the float bowl first and well, we're gonna go ahead and reduce the sizes of our jet by two steps on the idle and one step on the main jet.

Now, once the carb is all back together, you can reinstall the air cleaner by reversing all those steps.

Opening up, the Indians exhaust will help it breathe better too. Super trap makes this system for the chief and it's tunable by adding or removing baffle disc. Now, to get to them, we first have to remove a screw here that holds the fish tail tip in place,

then remove the fish tail tip.

There we go

and the next screw that holds the battle in place.

Then we can remove the Baffle assembly Oh, by the way, here are those disc I was talking about the more of these you add the freer the flow and of course, the louder the exhaust now the sound of a good healthy engine never bothered us. So we're going for the gusto gonna remove this battle entirely for maximum performance.

Well, that was pretty easy. Now, we just reinstall this fish tail tip, fire it up and see how much free horsepower we've got.

What's a good word? Well, how about 80 horsepower? Now with the baseline of 62 we just picked up 18 free ponies on that ride. Hey, that's not bad. But I'll tell you what, I can't wait to get the old chief here on the bottle and hey, we're gonna do that right after the break. So stay with us

and welcome back to the shop and more of our horsepower build up on this Indian chief. Well, so far today we made 18 extra horses just by opening up the intake and exhaust.

Now it's time to put the old chief on the bottle and uh we ain't talking firewater.

That's right. What we are talking about is Edel Brock's new Nitrous kit for V twin applications. Not only do they have them for the Indian over there, but, and they also have them for Harley's and many aftermarket bikes as well. Now, here's what you get in the kit

first. A nitrous bottle that attaches to the down tubes with a pair of billet brackets, then a spray bar plate that's configured for most aftermarket carburetors.

Now, here's the heart of the system. This aluminum plate

mounts the solenoids,

the fuel pump and the electronics. Now for a clean appearance, this chrome cover hides everything and also mounts the arming switch.

The electronics are set at the factory to kick the nitrous in at 4500 RPM. Now, this whole assembly mounts under the gas tank where the horn normally sits.

Therefore, your horn button becomes the activation switch.

Hey, that's pretty sneaky.

I've gotten started over here already by turning off the fuel and removing the air cleaner cover so I can un both the carb and install that spray plate.

But before you do make sure that you check the spray bars to ensure that the fuel and Nitrous are shooting into the engine.

Of course, the spray plate itself installs between the carb and the intake manifold.

We move on now to the fuel and nitrous lines that'll feed the spray plate. Of course, they're color coded red for fuel and blue for Nitrous.

The kit is tunable

and comes with several different size jets.

Select the one you want for the horsepower level. You're after and install it in the plate

before connecting the line

to be on the safe side. You wanna start with a smaller jets first and gradually work your way up

after that, we can go ahead and mount the bottle by clamping it to this down tube here.

Now, we need to remove the horn so we can make way for that control plate, which by the way is available for either rigid or rubber mount engines. Now, to do that, we remove three boats holding the upper engine mount.

Ok. Here's what that mount looks like off the bike. We're gonna attach our control plate to it using these three studs here. Now, everything can go back on the bike as an assembly.

Now, before we can install this control plate, we need to attach these lines connecting the spray plate to our solenoids. That is after we splice into the existing fuel line between the tank and our fuel pump. Now, I've already gone ahead and done that with this t fitting.

The wiring is the final step and it's pretty basic with four connections. This black lead here goes to the coil. It tells the system when the engines at 4500 RPM.

This red lead comes from a switch 12 volt source and it connects to the center terminal on the arming switch. This red lead from our electronics connects to the top terminal on that arming switch. Oh, this little stripe lead here. Well, that connects to the horn.

Oh, I can't forget about this, this braided line. Well, that's our nitrous feed and of course, it screws right into the bottle.

Well, that takes care of the installation. Now, let me show you how everything works. After you open the valve down here on the bottle, you arm the system with this rocker switch on the cover here, then just hold in on the horn button and hold on because this thing's gonna kick in by itself at 4500 RPM. Well, that sounds pretty simple, but let's see how it all works on the

dyno Jet.

Let's go for it.

Ok,

man. This thing is really on the warpath. Now, what are the numbers? 100 and eight horsepower? Man, that thing really kicks in at 4500 RPM and

I guess we made another 28 horsepower. Not bad for an hour's work. Not bad at all. And you know, with a little more tuning, hey, we're liable to find even more horsepower. Oh, no doubt about it. Well, you'll find more horsepower TV. After this break, stay with us.

Is there such a thing as too much horsepower on two wheels? Not if you're a Boss Hawk fan hop on for the ultimate thrill ride next on horsepower

and now a horsepower happening, celebrating the people places and events of the high performance lifestyle.

There's nothing unusual about seeing a 350 Chevy on the road these days. They're one of the most popular platforms out there.

That is unless you put it between the frame rails of a touring bike. Welcome to the home of Boss Hoss.

Imagine

355 horsepower on just 100 pounds of motorcycles. Well, how about this? 0 to 50 in just two seconds.

If power is your passion, then riding one of these boss

Hoss bikes has to be the ultimate two wheel power trip. Let's say you got a Nova that weighs 3600 pounds and

you drop an engine in it that has 1500 horsepower.

You know, that's what it's like. Only it's controllable.

Um,

but there's a few seconds there of the acceleration is just unbelievable.

It's the fastest, most powerful bike in the world.

And not for those with faint hearts or thin wallets with a price tag of 32,000 bucks for the basic ride.

We got a lot of people that, that would give anything to have them. But our typical customer

is uh

normally guys 40

up

and, um,

they, uh

they have a disposable income. They ride motorcycles, they've had a number of motorcycles

and uh

they see one

and they think, well, it'd be, they might like to have one, but once they ride one,

they're hooked.

The

sauce creator is Monty Warn, who grew up on a farm in South Dakota with an early love for horsepower and a dream of building a bike with lots of it.

He built his first

Bossa by hand in the late eighties

and was soon selling them as fast as he could make them here in his Dyersburg, Tennessee shop.

Of course, they begin life here in the frame room,

their 4130 chrome Molly aircraft tubing

uh

ch

millennium.

And uh we picked the very best quality tubing,

you know, like sprint cars are made out of.

And um they have to be perfectly true.

Uh Once it pulls out of the jig, the fixture,

um believe it or not, they cut them in half.

Um We have to

have a way to install the engine in the transmission. So we put a machine spice uh right in the very center of the frame

and that enables us to unfold it, pull it apart

and then put the engine in and then put the two halves around it.

It took a lot of other tricks to make the boss house

a smooth riding yet powerful bike like developing a transmission that would transfer all that torque and power.

I had to change the direction to drive off the uh fly wheel, of course

and have it controllable.

It surprisingly balanced real well. Uh And the bikes do handle real well.

Uh But there is a lot of things that we ran into

designing it down the road to, to get them

up to the standards of dot Standards that uh that we had to had to address. As you can see, every bike is hand assembled in the shop and everything goes on here from the Edelbrock carburetor to the drive belts.

Well, finally here they are ready for shipment to the dealers where they get a paint job and of course, a brand new owner,

by the way, if that 355 horses is not quite enough power.

You can also get one with, believe it or not a Chevy 502, the baddest boss of them all.

Just the sound of a loan is, is unbelievable in a motorcycle. I mean, it's,

but, uh,

we've had a number of guys that, that own these bikes that have also bought 502. It's their second bike. I mean, it's,

it's their, it's their, it's their hot rod

for people who like a hot ride bike with three wheels. There's also a new Boss

House track in production.

But meanwhile, with thousands already on the road, the little shop in Tennessee stays busy meeting the demands of horsepower, loving riders all over the world.

And that's great news for the founder whose childhood dreams have become a powerful reality. I couldn't imagine riding anything else. No, I mean, after riding these, it's just,

it's just too much fun.

Should you power your motorcycle with a belt or a chain? Decide for yourself on a special two wheel. Quick Tech. Next.

Yeah,

today on Quick Tech, we're gonna take a look at a couple of different ways to transfer power from your motorcycle engine to the rear wheel. Now in years past the chain was a pretty standard device, but recently

the belt drive has become a pretty popular option.

Of course, that's not to say that chains don't have their good points too.

They can handle more power and torque plus they're less expensive.

And if you break one on the side of the road, you can fix them easily with this chain link repair kit.

Now, that's something that's impossible to do if you're running a belt.

Now, the belt does offer reduced harmonics and a smoother transfer of power. Plus you don't have to lube it and put up with all that oil slinging everywhere.

The belt also won't stretch once it's taken a set. So you're not gonna continually adjust it to take the slack out like you would with a chain.

When it comes to efficiency, the chain creates more friction and takes more power to turn.

And because of that, it wears the parts faster and requires more frequent replacement.

Now, with the proper maintenance, you're gonna get about 5000 miles out of a regular chain and it's gonna cost you about 50 bucks

an O ring chain. On the other hand, is gonna give you 8 to 10,000 miles of service and it'll cost you 100 bucks.

On the other hand, a belt is gonna cost you about 100 and 75 bucks, but it weighs less and it takes less power to turn.

The best part though is it's gonna last you about 50,000 miles.

Both the belt and the chain offer the ability to change the final drive ratio fairly easily by swapping out either the pulleys or the sprockets. Now, if you're looking for a little more top end, well, you wanna go with a bigger cog up front and a smaller one in the rear.

Of course, if you're looking for more bottom and it's just the opposite. Use a smaller cog up front and a bigger one out back.

Hey, Chuck, all that makes sense. And obviously the chain and belt both have things going for them. But how do you choose the right one for your application? Well, you know, there's no hard and fast rule, but if you're riding a high horsepower scoot and you ride it pretty aggressively. Well, you're probably better off hanging a chain on it.

On the other hand, if you're riding a big heavy cruiser and spend most of your time on the highway, well, you're probably better off with a belt. All right. Well, it's time for us to buckle down and take a little break, but we'll be back with hot parts. So stay with us.

Horsepower TV.

S hot parts. A close up. Look at the latest in high performance hardware.

Since we're in a motorcycle mode today. Here's a little heads up for you. Evil big twin owners. These maximum velocity bullet heads from comp cams boat right up to your 80 inch engine and can handle up to a three and 1316 bore. They come from the factory with stainless steel valves, ductal iron seats

and their super springs with 10 degree locks and chrome Molly retainers. Now, James gasket sets also included and with flat top pistons, you get about a 10 to 1 squeeze factor after you squeeze your wallet for a little less than a grand.

Hey, with more and more fuel injected motorcycles these days, owners need a way to tune their electronics for maximum performance.

Now, this new power commander fuel injection kit from dyno

Jet also includes a computer connection cable and the software. You need to

reconfigure your ignition and fuel curves for maximum performance with the use of a laptop.

Now, this one plugs into a Harley, but they've also got them for most popular import bikes as well. Of course, you're gonna have to export about $300 from your budget to get one.

Well, here's an American made way to help you plan all that new power. It's Mickey Thompson's drag et slick with a lightweight designed to help reduce rotating mass and it comes in a variety of compounds to match track conditions.

Now, they've got them to fit 1517 and 18 inch rims with tread width that range from five and a quarter to 14 inches. So if you wanna lower your ETS,

you'll have to come up with 100 and 40 bucks and more for the bigger sizes. And uh that's pretty slick and so is next week's show. Here's a look at it.

We'll go inside our project pro touring pony with new door panels, carpet

to a new gauge cluster and even a set of seats.

We'll show you how to reinforce your chassis without any welding plus. Give you a lift by meeting the man behind this cool book.

And remember, high performance fun is what this show is all about.

Well, you said earlier there was more power left in on cheap over there.

What do you think? Well, I think we need to put a little jet out of it. Ok. You know, I noticed that it was rolling some black smoke out.

I

saw

that.

Yeah, kicked in the nitro. So let's pull some jet out. I think there's another five, maybe 10 horsepower in it

for information about the products used in today's show and more check us out online at horsepower tv.com

horsepower TV is an RTM production.
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