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Hey, what's up guys? Welcome to Top Dead Center. I'm a
neighbors.
All right now for the last 50 years, Bonneville has lived up to its legend as the mecca of speed.
It's a perfectly flat alien world with no speed limits.
It's a kind of place where motorcyclists like dogs off the leash. Get to run wide open.
Welcome to the Bonneville Salt Flats, home to the standard cores for World Land Speed Records. It's one of the flatt places on earth and over these 30,000 acres of sodium chloride,
the 304 105 106 100 mile per hour barriers have been broken.
And today the motorcycle category is one of the most popular with rising stars like John Noonan piloting is nearly 250 mile per hour street bike.
Well, when they started in 1949 there was very few bikes
now. Uh
probably 35% of our entries are bikes.
They call it salt favor
riders with the fever are divided in the classes maintained by strict rules of engine type displacement and chassis configuration
record setters push the limits on everything from a vintage 1955 triumph tiger cub side car
all the way up to the easy hook sponsored streamliner of Sam Wheeler.
Currently the record in Sam's class of the fuel streamliner is 322
MPH and this landlocked missile represents 13 years of work by the team to
that record.
But the added horsepower of their new 3000 cc turbo charge,
Kawasaki ZX 11 power plant is stretching the chain a
problem discovered only after a 274 mile per hour shakedown run.
Well, basically it got so hot that it,
when we say stretch, it didn't pull a metal apart. What it did, it wore it out and it gets real sloppy.
We didn't really hurt anything that bad but it was a lot of chips,
aluminum chips in there and the sprockets were ok.
The biggest difficulty with racing here,
you can't test it
until you come here
with their corporate backing. The team has spent a small fortune trying to capture the record but there are cheaper ways to get into the record books. Granted, they're not as fast.
Van and Kathy Butler are perennial record setters with their 50 CC Apria Rs 50.
This team only needs to go over 78
MPH to break a 25 year old record in their class, but that's not as easy as it sounds,
especially with a three cubic inch motor and a much smaller budget.
This type of racing this is probably some of the last
grassroots racing,
um, that there is in the United States. I think that
this
cubic dollars,
um,
doesn't really apply.
Ingenuity applies a lot.
Um, you try things. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't.
But what does work well with this team is the good natured interaction of crew chief, husband and rider wife.
Van tells me how he thinks I should drive the course
and what I should look for on my computers. And then when I get on the course, a lot of times I kind of
you have to ride by the seat of your pants and I have to use
what I think is the right way to do it. And then I come back and tell Van why I did what I did
and sometimes he agrees with me.
Not always, a
combination of small displacement, power and high tech design comes together in Derek mcleish's streamliner side car
with the help of his brothers. This project in just three short months, went from a PV C and Plywood mock up to the bike on the salt today
swapping between 5100, 1, 25 and 250 CC Honda Power Plants.
The team is driving for records in several side car classes, but no matter the power, the aerodynamics is critical to attaining speed speed. That can be sometimes hard to describe
the sensation really is um
think if you're going 100 203 113 like my friend Rick
Yui did all
313 miles an hour. Everything is moving so fast
and when you stop, it's like you guys are in slow motion.
Now, if you don't think aerodynamics is that important and you attack the salt on your powerful street bike, you'll quickly run into what experienced racers call the hand of God.
Watch how John Noonan's 468 horsepower
Hausa dances from side to side as it reaches not its power limit but its aerodynamic limit.
It's very strange when you're going very fast and you just can't go any, you can reach a point where you just aren't accelerating anymore.
There's that point up there where you can lose have 40 miles an hour worth of wheel spin where the bike is just fish tailing and you're just not going anywhere. It's a very strange feeling, you know, it's like somebody's holding you back.
Now. The street bike guys are into the very latest in engine technology for setting records, but one of the most entertaining teams on the so
uses a cast iron engine design over 20 years old
and it's all the more impressive considering their goal is to push a naturally aspirated gas burning hog past the 200 mile per hour mark for the first time ever.
Nothing conjures the image of speed more than a streamliner, especially when it's powered by a big shovel head
just who is this? California Fritz. And why is he having so much fun?
They call it the great white dyno nine miles of salt that knows more about slowing you down than you know about going fast. California Fritz first came here in 1990.
Confident he could break the 200 mile per hour barrier.
I built 100 and 20 cubic inch motor, this huge motor and, and I'll tell you what, when I, when I made my first run
100 and 18 miles an hour, that was the top speed
Bonneville kicked my butt
13 years later and still in pursuit of his dream. The too much fun club's new streamliner still uses a naturally aspirated show ahead built by Fritz.
It's 118 cubic inches should easily push him past the class record of 100 and 84
MPH
on his very first run. The team shatters the record hitting 215
MPH
at
the end of the run, the shoots tear off. So it's back to the pits for repairs because at Bonneville, you have to back up your record
the next day, the team's back on the starting line. And after one last check of the shoots, fritz is off again.
When you get up to that 200 mark,
everything
changes, everything turns around.
The whole machine is actually flying.
The wheels are touching the ground just to give you direction. That's it.
It's an experience
and he does it again, 215
MPH. But the shoots tear away again.
Now it looks like a complicated problem. But Fritz already knows the exact reason it's happening.
Buying cheap stuff at the army surplus.
I need to buy better equipment.
I need sponsors,
fruits and the boys now realize there is no antidote for salt fever. In fact, it appears their condition has worsened
when we come out here next year,
we're gonna kick some butt.
We're, we're gonna show them how to go fast on an old cast iron Harley.
Ok. Now we bet you have salt fever too.
Well, congratulations to Kathy Sam and California Fritz on their new world records.
When we come back. It's a look at another record for horsepower Chrysler's outrageous be
to
ha
back in the six EJ Potter, the Michigan Madman wedged, a small block Chevy and a crude Harley drag bike.
The latest car power bike may not be crude but it is extreme.
It's outrageous, beautiful and extreme.
The Dodge Tomahawk redefines the concept of concept bikes with a 505 inch Viper V 10, surrounded with radical mechanicals and art deco styling
to showcase the Viper engine. Dodge chose a team with no motorcycle preconceptions.
Daimler Chrysler doesn't have a history of doing motorcycles. We don't know that much about them. That's a very
unusual step to take and they took it.
We set the engine on a table, put the wheels and connected the dots
and we knew it had to do certain things
to be functional and work. So there's a lot of invention
and we, we
Denver Chrysler put no limitations on
our thinking
and because we don't normally build motorcycles, it was a fun project
starting with 10,000 pounds of billet Bennett's team took 5.5 months to connect all the dots
to stabilize the 1500 pound bike. They devised a unique system with two independently suspended front wheels.
They move in tandem and are controlled by twin steering arms on a common shaft.
The 8300 C CV 10 generates 505 horsepower and 525 ft pounds of torque.
All that energy hooks up through a two speed gearbox with dual chains that drive independently suspended twin rear wheels,
their width eliminates the need for a kickstand
and helps the bike achieve 0 to 60 in only 2.5 seconds
with a theoretical top speed of 300 miles an hour. It's not intended to be street worthy, but it is a captivating concept.
The Dodge Tomahawk is blue sky thinking carved out of a glistening piece of solid billet aluminum.
It's a bald-faced slap against mediocrity and a scintillating example of what creative minds can come up with when given the opportunity to run free.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen,
this is our 505 cubic inch 500 horsepower
Viper V 10
powering these beasts.
No, Chrysler's CEO has no plans to manufacture the beast but Bud Bennett does. He's building 10 of them right now.
The price a cool 550,000.
All right. Now, that was a mean bike guys. But that's what makes it so cool.
Tommy G and more on our YZ 250 F project bike. Right after the break.
We're back on top. Dead center. I'm Tommy G.
Check out our Motocross project bike. Last week we installed a hot start and an aftermarket exhaust. But last week we didn't get a chance to hear this four stroke thumb.
What do you say? I kick it over.
Damn, that sounds like a race bike.
Now, let's make it look like one.
These YZ graphics are from BS Y racing.
I spent a few years wrenching for these guys. Riders like Doug Dubo
Ernesto, Fonseca, Larry Brooks and Tyson
Hazel all rode for BS. Y
now these graphics won't make you win,
but they're sure gonna make you look like you belong on the starting gate of a pro Supercross
first. Get rid of all the stock graphics. We gotta strip this thing naked
next. Get all the excess glue off. A little rubbing alcohol will work just fine.
I
like to hit my new graphics with the hair dryer.
This makes the decals easier to put on and they stick, better
start with the front fender first line up the bottom and peel the backing as you go,
take your time with this. You don't want any air bubbles,
continue down the bike until you get all the way to the rear.
Take a step back and check it out. Our YZ 250 F is really shaping up
but looks aren't everything.
That's why we're gonna change out this bike stock brake cable with the high performance upgrade.
This is Doctor D's stronger, front brake line and mounting kit.
The cable is made of stainless steel
with a Kevlar coating.
Kevlar is such a strong material. It prevents the brake line from swelling. We all know what a mushy brake feels like.
You might have noticed. I didn't put a graphic on the fort guard.
That's because I need to remove the cable, cut the tabs mount the mounting kit and then add a new graphic.
Once the guard is off, follow the instructions from out in the new bracket,
apply any graphics. Now, before securing the guard back on the fork,
here's a tip to keep fluid from spilling out of the master cylinder.
Instead of just pulling the brake line,
simply rotate the reservoir upwards to keep any fluid from spilling out.
Here's another advantage to this upgrade.
It mounts to the YZ much more efficiently,
see how the stock line comes up under the fork. A lot of guys lose their front brake in a crash
because this thing just gets hammered.
Our replacement comes down on the inside of the fork away from any impact area.
Once you're disconnected at the bottom, you're ready to install your upgrade.
Start by connecting the line at the master cylinder and follow the stock routing down the fork
at the bottom. Take it straight to the caliper and connect it up.
The doctor D mounting kit utilizes the stock line guide bracket
to bleed the line. We're going to open up the master cylinder cover,
fill her up
and pumped a lever a few times,
then
pop the bleeder screw on the caliper to release the air on the line.
Just keep doing this until all the air is out of the new brake line.
You know,
here's a tip for you. Put a tie wrap
on the handlebar, pull the lever close what this will do. If there's any air left in the line,
it'll work its way to the highest point.
Leave this overnight,
come tomorrow on race day, clip it
and you're ready to go
and we're good to go too with some of the latest new products including one that will satisfy your need for power. This is Air Force one. It's a mean looking Harley Turbo system from RC components
that provides a 50 to 100% increase in reliable horsepower.
It's complete with lines fittings, a boost gauge and SNS super G carb,
the Turbo K and M filter and chrome exhaust. These bolton
units sell for about 3100 but they will nearly double the horsepower of a stock twin cam with no other mods
all. Now, our next product will help you
install this system or do just about any bike work. It's the beast electric lift from precision industries.
It will lift up to 1000 pounds of motorcycle to a comfortable work height of 32 inches.
It's simple to operate and comes with an on off ramp, a dolly arm and an optional wheel clamp.
About $700 will get you an air powered one or 950 for an electrical one like ours. Now to the style department,
if you're serious about profiling and you want the ultimate in attention getting wheels, check out this new spinning wheel from RC components. These wild wheels are machine from Ford's T six aluminum billet
and feature a free floating insert that turns at wheel speed.
But when you come to a stop, the spinner insert keeps turning.
It may be the next thing for cruiser and sport bike guys who wants something different different may be cool but it isn't cheap. MS RP starts at about 4200 a pair.
Now, if you want something that's also cool but a lot more affordable. Check out Fox's new tactic race jersey. It sports a famous Fox race
logo on the front. It's made of super lightweight polyester fabric with a ribbed V neck to wick perspiration
and it also has got exclusive micro cuffs to keep pressure off your wrists.
The tactic is the way to go for Motocross and you can pick one up for around 3995.
Well, that's all for top dead center this week. Join us next week when we take a wild look at the guys and girls who dare to ride speedway,
it'll be a great show. We'll see you then.
Show Full Transcript
neighbors.
All right now for the last 50 years, Bonneville has lived up to its legend as the mecca of speed.
It's a perfectly flat alien world with no speed limits.
It's a kind of place where motorcyclists like dogs off the leash. Get to run wide open.
Welcome to the Bonneville Salt Flats, home to the standard cores for World Land Speed Records. It's one of the flatt places on earth and over these 30,000 acres of sodium chloride,
the 304 105 106 100 mile per hour barriers have been broken.
And today the motorcycle category is one of the most popular with rising stars like John Noonan piloting is nearly 250 mile per hour street bike.
Well, when they started in 1949 there was very few bikes
now. Uh
probably 35% of our entries are bikes.
They call it salt favor
riders with the fever are divided in the classes maintained by strict rules of engine type displacement and chassis configuration
record setters push the limits on everything from a vintage 1955 triumph tiger cub side car
all the way up to the easy hook sponsored streamliner of Sam Wheeler.
Currently the record in Sam's class of the fuel streamliner is 322
MPH and this landlocked missile represents 13 years of work by the team to
that record.
But the added horsepower of their new 3000 cc turbo charge,
Kawasaki ZX 11 power plant is stretching the chain a
problem discovered only after a 274 mile per hour shakedown run.
Well, basically it got so hot that it,
when we say stretch, it didn't pull a metal apart. What it did, it wore it out and it gets real sloppy.
We didn't really hurt anything that bad but it was a lot of chips,
aluminum chips in there and the sprockets were ok.
The biggest difficulty with racing here,
you can't test it
until you come here
with their corporate backing. The team has spent a small fortune trying to capture the record but there are cheaper ways to get into the record books. Granted, they're not as fast.
Van and Kathy Butler are perennial record setters with their 50 CC Apria Rs 50.
This team only needs to go over 78
MPH to break a 25 year old record in their class, but that's not as easy as it sounds,
especially with a three cubic inch motor and a much smaller budget.
This type of racing this is probably some of the last
grassroots racing,
um, that there is in the United States. I think that
this
cubic dollars,
um,
doesn't really apply.
Ingenuity applies a lot.
Um, you try things. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't.
But what does work well with this team is the good natured interaction of crew chief, husband and rider wife.
Van tells me how he thinks I should drive the course
and what I should look for on my computers. And then when I get on the course, a lot of times I kind of
you have to ride by the seat of your pants and I have to use
what I think is the right way to do it. And then I come back and tell Van why I did what I did
and sometimes he agrees with me.
Not always, a
combination of small displacement, power and high tech design comes together in Derek mcleish's streamliner side car
with the help of his brothers. This project in just three short months, went from a PV C and Plywood mock up to the bike on the salt today
swapping between 5100, 1, 25 and 250 CC Honda Power Plants.
The team is driving for records in several side car classes, but no matter the power, the aerodynamics is critical to attaining speed speed. That can be sometimes hard to describe
the sensation really is um
think if you're going 100 203 113 like my friend Rick
Yui did all
313 miles an hour. Everything is moving so fast
and when you stop, it's like you guys are in slow motion.
Now, if you don't think aerodynamics is that important and you attack the salt on your powerful street bike, you'll quickly run into what experienced racers call the hand of God.
Watch how John Noonan's 468 horsepower
Hausa dances from side to side as it reaches not its power limit but its aerodynamic limit.
It's very strange when you're going very fast and you just can't go any, you can reach a point where you just aren't accelerating anymore.
There's that point up there where you can lose have 40 miles an hour worth of wheel spin where the bike is just fish tailing and you're just not going anywhere. It's a very strange feeling, you know, it's like somebody's holding you back.
Now. The street bike guys are into the very latest in engine technology for setting records, but one of the most entertaining teams on the so
uses a cast iron engine design over 20 years old
and it's all the more impressive considering their goal is to push a naturally aspirated gas burning hog past the 200 mile per hour mark for the first time ever.
Nothing conjures the image of speed more than a streamliner, especially when it's powered by a big shovel head
just who is this? California Fritz. And why is he having so much fun?
They call it the great white dyno nine miles of salt that knows more about slowing you down than you know about going fast. California Fritz first came here in 1990.
Confident he could break the 200 mile per hour barrier.
I built 100 and 20 cubic inch motor, this huge motor and, and I'll tell you what, when I, when I made my first run
100 and 18 miles an hour, that was the top speed
Bonneville kicked my butt
13 years later and still in pursuit of his dream. The too much fun club's new streamliner still uses a naturally aspirated show ahead built by Fritz.
It's 118 cubic inches should easily push him past the class record of 100 and 84
MPH
on his very first run. The team shatters the record hitting 215
MPH
at
the end of the run, the shoots tear off. So it's back to the pits for repairs because at Bonneville, you have to back up your record
the next day, the team's back on the starting line. And after one last check of the shoots, fritz is off again.
When you get up to that 200 mark,
everything
changes, everything turns around.
The whole machine is actually flying.
The wheels are touching the ground just to give you direction. That's it.
It's an experience
and he does it again, 215
MPH. But the shoots tear away again.
Now it looks like a complicated problem. But Fritz already knows the exact reason it's happening.
Buying cheap stuff at the army surplus.
I need to buy better equipment.
I need sponsors,
fruits and the boys now realize there is no antidote for salt fever. In fact, it appears their condition has worsened
when we come out here next year,
we're gonna kick some butt.
We're, we're gonna show them how to go fast on an old cast iron Harley.
Ok. Now we bet you have salt fever too.
Well, congratulations to Kathy Sam and California Fritz on their new world records.
When we come back. It's a look at another record for horsepower Chrysler's outrageous be
to
ha
back in the six EJ Potter, the Michigan Madman wedged, a small block Chevy and a crude Harley drag bike.
The latest car power bike may not be crude but it is extreme.
It's outrageous, beautiful and extreme.
The Dodge Tomahawk redefines the concept of concept bikes with a 505 inch Viper V 10, surrounded with radical mechanicals and art deco styling
to showcase the Viper engine. Dodge chose a team with no motorcycle preconceptions.
Daimler Chrysler doesn't have a history of doing motorcycles. We don't know that much about them. That's a very
unusual step to take and they took it.
We set the engine on a table, put the wheels and connected the dots
and we knew it had to do certain things
to be functional and work. So there's a lot of invention
and we, we
Denver Chrysler put no limitations on
our thinking
and because we don't normally build motorcycles, it was a fun project
starting with 10,000 pounds of billet Bennett's team took 5.5 months to connect all the dots
to stabilize the 1500 pound bike. They devised a unique system with two independently suspended front wheels.
They move in tandem and are controlled by twin steering arms on a common shaft.
The 8300 C CV 10 generates 505 horsepower and 525 ft pounds of torque.
All that energy hooks up through a two speed gearbox with dual chains that drive independently suspended twin rear wheels,
their width eliminates the need for a kickstand
and helps the bike achieve 0 to 60 in only 2.5 seconds
with a theoretical top speed of 300 miles an hour. It's not intended to be street worthy, but it is a captivating concept.
The Dodge Tomahawk is blue sky thinking carved out of a glistening piece of solid billet aluminum.
It's a bald-faced slap against mediocrity and a scintillating example of what creative minds can come up with when given the opportunity to run free.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen,
this is our 505 cubic inch 500 horsepower
Viper V 10
powering these beasts.
No, Chrysler's CEO has no plans to manufacture the beast but Bud Bennett does. He's building 10 of them right now.
The price a cool 550,000.
All right. Now, that was a mean bike guys. But that's what makes it so cool.
Tommy G and more on our YZ 250 F project bike. Right after the break.
We're back on top. Dead center. I'm Tommy G.
Check out our Motocross project bike. Last week we installed a hot start and an aftermarket exhaust. But last week we didn't get a chance to hear this four stroke thumb.
What do you say? I kick it over.
Damn, that sounds like a race bike.
Now, let's make it look like one.
These YZ graphics are from BS Y racing.
I spent a few years wrenching for these guys. Riders like Doug Dubo
Ernesto, Fonseca, Larry Brooks and Tyson
Hazel all rode for BS. Y
now these graphics won't make you win,
but they're sure gonna make you look like you belong on the starting gate of a pro Supercross
first. Get rid of all the stock graphics. We gotta strip this thing naked
next. Get all the excess glue off. A little rubbing alcohol will work just fine.
I
like to hit my new graphics with the hair dryer.
This makes the decals easier to put on and they stick, better
start with the front fender first line up the bottom and peel the backing as you go,
take your time with this. You don't want any air bubbles,
continue down the bike until you get all the way to the rear.
Take a step back and check it out. Our YZ 250 F is really shaping up
but looks aren't everything.
That's why we're gonna change out this bike stock brake cable with the high performance upgrade.
This is Doctor D's stronger, front brake line and mounting kit.
The cable is made of stainless steel
with a Kevlar coating.
Kevlar is such a strong material. It prevents the brake line from swelling. We all know what a mushy brake feels like.
You might have noticed. I didn't put a graphic on the fort guard.
That's because I need to remove the cable, cut the tabs mount the mounting kit and then add a new graphic.
Once the guard is off, follow the instructions from out in the new bracket,
apply any graphics. Now, before securing the guard back on the fork,
here's a tip to keep fluid from spilling out of the master cylinder.
Instead of just pulling the brake line,
simply rotate the reservoir upwards to keep any fluid from spilling out.
Here's another advantage to this upgrade.
It mounts to the YZ much more efficiently,
see how the stock line comes up under the fork. A lot of guys lose their front brake in a crash
because this thing just gets hammered.
Our replacement comes down on the inside of the fork away from any impact area.
Once you're disconnected at the bottom, you're ready to install your upgrade.
Start by connecting the line at the master cylinder and follow the stock routing down the fork
at the bottom. Take it straight to the caliper and connect it up.
The doctor D mounting kit utilizes the stock line guide bracket
to bleed the line. We're going to open up the master cylinder cover,
fill her up
and pumped a lever a few times,
then
pop the bleeder screw on the caliper to release the air on the line.
Just keep doing this until all the air is out of the new brake line.
You know,
here's a tip for you. Put a tie wrap
on the handlebar, pull the lever close what this will do. If there's any air left in the line,
it'll work its way to the highest point.
Leave this overnight,
come tomorrow on race day, clip it
and you're ready to go
and we're good to go too with some of the latest new products including one that will satisfy your need for power. This is Air Force one. It's a mean looking Harley Turbo system from RC components
that provides a 50 to 100% increase in reliable horsepower.
It's complete with lines fittings, a boost gauge and SNS super G carb,
the Turbo K and M filter and chrome exhaust. These bolton
units sell for about 3100 but they will nearly double the horsepower of a stock twin cam with no other mods
all. Now, our next product will help you
install this system or do just about any bike work. It's the beast electric lift from precision industries.
It will lift up to 1000 pounds of motorcycle to a comfortable work height of 32 inches.
It's simple to operate and comes with an on off ramp, a dolly arm and an optional wheel clamp.
About $700 will get you an air powered one or 950 for an electrical one like ours. Now to the style department,
if you're serious about profiling and you want the ultimate in attention getting wheels, check out this new spinning wheel from RC components. These wild wheels are machine from Ford's T six aluminum billet
and feature a free floating insert that turns at wheel speed.
But when you come to a stop, the spinner insert keeps turning.
It may be the next thing for cruiser and sport bike guys who wants something different different may be cool but it isn't cheap. MS RP starts at about 4200 a pair.
Now, if you want something that's also cool but a lot more affordable. Check out Fox's new tactic race jersey. It sports a famous Fox race
logo on the front. It's made of super lightweight polyester fabric with a ribbed V neck to wick perspiration
and it also has got exclusive micro cuffs to keep pressure off your wrists.
The tactic is the way to go for Motocross and you can pick one up for around 3995.
Well, that's all for top dead center this week. Join us next week when we take a wild look at the guys and girls who dare to ride speedway,
it'll be a great show. We'll see you then.
