Ugly ? That bike is beautiful. Well executed engineering ! Thanks for posting the video.

Nicely done, fellas. Old flatheads should never die, they should just go faster!

Good luck on your latest attempt on new world records! Go get em guys!

Love the sound of that thing. Lordy! Aesthetics? Perfect for this machine!

now I know what to do with my 42-wla flathead.. great job.. i love it..

@mcflathead

7 жыл бұрын

Thanks. The dual porting does make a big difference.

In 1952, Jack Dale turned 123..52.11 MPH on his flathead 45 Harley, using 81 octane gasoline. Dale bought this racer in 1939, tuned and improved it until he broke the record at Bonneville. The bike is a "kit job" built on a set of 1937 WLDR cases. Bob Shirey another well known California racer was involved in the prep of this bike. **HD WR Beauty of Speed.

Great stuff

Congrats on the reward for all your hard work!

@mcflathead

10 жыл бұрын

Thanks Rusty! We are currently preparing to go back one more time to up the 1000cc gas record. Hoping for 120+...

@h7oslo

10 жыл бұрын

Best of luck to you, and your team! I've had a few WL's and very much appreciate the speed you are getting from them! Amazing!!!

Well done guys, did the salt diet hurt much of the engine & blower internals ?

In '79 or'80 when time for the Oregon Bohemia Mountain run rolled around I was in the process of rebuilding my Panhead. I wanted to go too but as a result no ride. As a joke the owner of Westside Motorcycles in Eugene where I was doing the work on my bike offered me a trade in '45 45" to ride. This thing had an old springer that had been stretched out around 12 inches and the frame was raked to match. Short stubby drag bars topped this all off. No front brakes, barely any rear brakes {drum}, suicide shift (not a jockey), and hard tail of coarse. He I found out did not think I would ride it. Well now I had to. On that run there would be anything from big twins, antiques, to new performance off road exotics etc. The antiques, big twins, cruisers , etc would stop at the parking lot while the exotics made for off road would continue to the top over boulders. I was much younger and a lot more daring (DUMB) then and said what the hell. They all had a big laugh leaving me to trail way behind and play catch up on that monstrosity so I decided to put on a show. I was riding double with the Ol' Lady that day but we made it to the top with the fancy off road types without a hitch. I must say it was more like riding a bull than a bike but we made it to the top without crashing! Later they were laughing about how there was about a foot of daylight between our butts and the saddle most of the way up and down. They didn't have a trophy that fit my achievement so I was given the honor of leading the pack all the way back with the old 45" chugging along at the front on her proudest day!

@mcflathead

6 жыл бұрын

Great story, man! I was never really a 45" rider, although my racing partner Ted lived and breathed the things for the better part of 40 years. I did buy a big pile of 45" WLC parts in about 1981 and built five or six runners "for sale" out of it, but I only rode 45's a few times. In the early '80's I built and was riding a 1950 EL Panhead mild chopper... 6" over wide glide front end, raked '57 straight-leg frame, jockey shift, seat-on-frame hard-tail, 15" rear wheel with a square-cornered bias-ply VW tire on the back. Going around corners the bike would stand up on the very edge of that square tire, with only an inch of rubber contacting the road... the guys I rode with thought I was nuts! The hard tail and seat combo would really make my girlfriend squirm after a while, and I have to admit that one time on a side road north of Minneapolis, after 25 miles of big expansion cracks, my back was spasming so bad that I too had to stop and rest for a while. In 1980 I was working in the Yukon, and I picked up a 1933 Harley VL 74" flathead engine salvaged from a machine shop in Whitehorse. By 1984 I had the entire bike completed. It was fairly stock, although I made my own fenders and used an old brass car headlight instead of the original type. After my first ride, I fell in love with it! My preference in rides seemed to be getting more and more primitive. I remember riding it to Sturgis in '86... it had been a dry summer, and I kept imagining myself as a figure in one of those grainy old depression-era photos of VL and Indian riders posing in parched dust-bowl locations with cow skeletons and tumbleweeds. On my VL I'd installed a stock 2-into-1 header pipe set, but instead of a muffler it had a 3 foot length of straight pipe. Taking advantage of the "wasted-spark" ignition (both plugs firing at every breaker opening), if I shut off the ignition for a split second while riding along, both cylinders would fill with unburnt gas... turning the ignition back on, one cylinder would be on compression and fire naturally, but the other would be on the exhaust stroke with a cylinder full of gas... and KA-BOOM! It was like a shot-gun going off... scaring fellow riders, pedestrians, dogs, small children... all lifeforms within earshot! And in the dark, you would see about two feet of flame shoot out of the tailpipe! Much fun and hilarity!

Wonder conversations about this project. Basically a "Servicar" engine, right? Video was so well done and tops. There's a fella with a wheezy old WL riding around our fair city of Augusta, Ks these days. He says parts are getting hard to find, his transmission is pretty well clapped out.

@mcflathead

8 жыл бұрын

+whalesong999 I never thought I would see the day when 45 parts became scarce... all those military bikes... all the spare parts in original boxes and wrapping! They're finally pretty much gone. Though the engines were pretty much indestructible, the 45 transmission wasn't the best design in regards to longevity. The kicker arm was on the end of the countershaft. If the bike ever fell on that side, the leverage on the kicker arm would cause the countershaft to bend, and then the countershaft bearings would gouge up the shafts and races, and everything would generally grind itself to pieces. Even 30 years ago 45 tranny cases were getting scarce. And yes, we did use a G motor in the racer.

Most excellent. 2 cyl flaty at that alt., that old, going 120mph.

It just is what it is. A race bike, not a show-stopper! Form following function...

I would love to see u guys do the same mods on a UL flatty ,and take her to Boneville

@mcflathead

9 жыл бұрын

Thanks! Yeah! We toyed with the idea for years. A UL engine with dual ports, spark plugs and mods in a Sodium Distortion-style low profile frame. Talked about it a lot! However, by necessity we were always a low budget operation and UL engines had gotten fairly pricey. Hence it never progressed beyond the pipe-dream stage...

Very impressive, any person that has spent time on an actual 45 will attest to how much of an accomplishment it is to take a bike that has problems staying at 55mph, all the way to 120. Any advice you'd give me to make some usable power out of a flatty on the street?

@mcflathead

8 жыл бұрын

+Tramp Cycles Thanks! A set of performance cams for roller tappets would probably be the best way to get some extra power for the street. And maybe a 28mm carb. (sounds small but it works) Ted runs an old set of Black Widow cams and a 28mm Amal on his street 45 with taller gearing. He can sustain 60 mph with no problem on the prairies. Dual port cylinders is where the real power is. Decent 45 cylinders can still be bought pretty cheap. We brazed 1" ID pipe going directly in between the cylinder head bolt holes to the intake ports and filled in the original holes. Ted was running a set of these with 26mm Amals on his street 45 a few years back, but the carbs got in the way of his right leg and he decided to go back to the traditional single carb set up. That dual port rig did make power though... had no trouble keeping up with my UL at 70mph!

Great accomplishments on a 45. What do you guys think you could do with an 80" flattie?

@mcflathead

8 жыл бұрын

+robert nickel Thanks! Appreciate it! We talked a lot about doing an 80". Same kinds of mods. Dual ports and carbs... maybe 32's... keep the intake flow straight and the velocity high so the fuel stays suspended (the single largest problem with the flathead). Whale tail or swirl feature at the valve, wedge style combustion surfaces in the heads like the KR. Big, tight squish areas (to maintain an even mixture in those impossibly large combustion chambers). Either real loose piston clearances (.015") or water jackets... we got bit in the ass a bunch of times by that one (.008" sounds loose... until the the top ring of the rear piston sticks, and your compression goes away!). Magneto, two plugs per head to allow reduced timing advance, intake cams with late, late closings (it does work!)... and maybe more aggressive overlap than we used in the 45 (yes... hindsight is 20-20). Four speed Harley tranny. Put it all in a low frame similar to the one Sodium Distortion had so much success with... I would be fairly confident of 145, and hoping for as much as 155 or more. It will never happen of course. Big twin flattie parts were too expensive a decade ago and prohibitive now for our low budget efforts. And will the salt ever be same again? Or just a flooded debacle like it was in 2014... I'm glad we did it when we did!

How did the Judson / SU work? Was it a lot faster? We never did run two mags. On the final version of the racer the timer worked a high volt Dyna coil and the side mounted magneto fed the extra plug in each cylinder. Eight years ago I would have insisted on using 38's on a big flattie, but after seeing how well those 28's worked with 930cc, I'd probably use 32's on 1320cc with smallish exhaust pipes (inch and a half). Our bike was faster than a lot of OHV machines of greater displacement.

Oops! I meant inch and 3/4 exhaust pipes...

Impressive!

@mcflathead

6 жыл бұрын

Thanks! Wait till you see our UL racer. Did 127 one way and averaged 124 last year on a really really bad track!

Flat heads forever great accomplishment!!!!!!!!!!

Have you ever heard of Jack Dale? In 1951 at Bonneville he went 123.52mph.

@mcflathead

7 жыл бұрын

I have now! I just googled him. That's really impressive, especially with the springer front end. I can see how light he kept the bike, and of course doing the Rollie Free thing must have helped, and it sure took a lot of guts. In some pics at "Beauty of Speed" the bike appears to have the stock three speed, but in others it appears to have maybe a British tranny. We had to put a close ratio gear set in our 4-speed triumph gearbox... with stock gearing we couldn't pull 4th at all. We've actually just begun collaborating again, this time on a 80 cu. in. UL racer. Thanks for the info!

Wow! I am impressed, green but impressed. I haven't owned a bike in 20 years so I hope I can ask a few questions. I fell in love again with the old ones. The newer Harleys just didn't get it for me any more. At the end of the video you listed the bikes speed record. I noticed 750 and 1000. I thought all of the bikes were going to be 45's and not 61's,what did I miss? What kind of speed could I expect on a 45? for shot touring rides 1000-1500 miles. I don't really care about the speed, but you never know when you might have to take a spin on the freeway? When I was a Lad I owned a CB 750 Honda, 650 Triumph Bonneville both easy to kick start. All of my Harleys were electric ignition. How hard is a 45 to kick over? I've got old weak legs now. I was wondering lastly what a fair price on 38? 45 flat head completely rebuilt and a fine job would be worth? A fellow about a mile down the road has one that he may entertain offers? Thanks, Mike

@mcflathead

6 жыл бұрын

Hi Mike After 3 years of running in 750 class, we bored and stroked the "45" to about 930cc, which put us in 1000cc class. Surprisingly, the power increase was not what we had hoped for. It made more torque across the power band until top rpm... because of the increased stroke, the power shut down earlier than it did as a 750. After re-gearing to the new power band, our top speed in gas class only went up a few mph. Of course the blown version did quite a bit better. I think that a stock 45 with civilian gearing should cruise at 60-65 mph on the level at modest altitudes without much trouble. Pushing a big wind, or in the mountains etc will bring your speed down considerably. A few years back, me and my good buddy Ted (the guy doing the racing in the above video) took a trip out to British Colombia... me on my 1942 UL flathead Harley and Ted on his WL 45" engined Norton (yes, a Harley flathead 45" engine in a Commando rolling chassis, using the Norton primary and transmission). My UL was geared pretty tall, so I could run 75-80 mph on the flat all day long. Ted cruised fine at about 62 -65 while going across the prairies, but once we got near the Alberta foothills around Pincher Creek with the greater altitude and infamously high winds, he was at times down to around 50, and draped all over the gas tank trying to make himself smaller. And then in the high mountain passes, that poor engine was so down on power that we were often crawling uphill at thirty... five... miles... per... h o u r...! Flathead 45's with battery-points ignition are easy to kick-start. The compression is only 5 or 6 to one (depending on your cylinder head cut-outs). Touring with old iron will make you the centre of attention everywhere you go. Its pretty cool! But I've gotta be straight-up with you... covering big miles on old machines is not for the faint-of-heart. Its an adventure, but sometimes more adventure than is wanted! You have to know your bike inside and out. You have to carry a very comprehensive tool set. Be prepared for a daily, evening routine of chain lube and adjustment, valve-lifter adjustment, ignition point checks, tire inflation checks, spark-plug checks, looking over everything to make sure nothing is falling off, cleaning copious amounts of dirt and oil off everything, etc, etc. All of this after a long hard "bouncy" day on the road... when all you want to do is to sit back, relax, and have a beer. Because of the vibration, things will break, and you have to be ready, because no Harley shop out there has spares for these things anymore. I always carried spares (within reason) for everything I thought could go wrong. Spare 50 wt oil, and lots of it, because at speed these old girls can push quite a bit of it! Spare inner tube, points, plugs, handlebar control wire, chain master links, primary belt (yes, converted from chain), ignition coil, electrical wire, etc, etc, etc... anything I thought might leave me stranded. And I actually did fry my ignition coil coming back through Saskatchewan a few years back, but fortunately I had the spare! Sometimes you are forced to be creative. One time I broke a clutch pull-rod. Ted donated a spare boot lace... and away I went! (It was actually smoother than the factory set-up!) When I was in Sturgis in '86 I had to tear down the transmission on my '33 Harley VL on a picnic table... worn out main drive gear dogs! I spun the rear wheel sprocket on the same bike when I was in Iowa. A camper took me into town and I bought solid rivets at a hardware store. We peened them over with the back of a hatchet while the brake drum rim and rivet head were supported on a rock! Another time I fried the 6-volt battery in my old Panhead in the South Dakota badlands. The only thing for 100 miles was a gas bar with a convenience store, so the only six volt batteries they had were those big square Mallory dry cell lantern batteries. So I bought a couple, connected one up, disconnected the generator, and kicked it over. It fired up just fine! So I set off not really knowing what to expect. Would I even get 20 miles? Well it actually worked pretty good! It turned out that my ignition would run for 100 miles on one 6-volt Mallory dry cell lantern battery! I won't deny that these breakdowns do make good stories! But sometimes the WORST happens, and then its likely going to get expensive and ugly! Two years ago I holed a piston in my UL when I still had 800 miles left in my trip. One thousand dollars and a U-Haul rental later, my bike was finally home. No good story. Just a crappy feeling and a big bill! After all these years, I finally got stranded! It was then that I finally decided to let the vintage riding be, and buy a modern bike. (Me and Ted have since turned the UL into the new Bonneville racer.) But that's me. I'm 65 now, and I've been running vintage machines on-and-off for 35 years. I've done it lots, and I can let it go now. I keep in good shape, but I have already had one knee replacement. I can still put on 600 miles a day, but I'm not a kid anymore, so I ride a modern bike! However, if I were like you, and I still had a deep yearning to ride old iron, I would probably do this... I don't think you could go wrong by joining the Antique Motorcycle Club of America and taking an antique Harley on their road runs. There's lots of support and back-up if you get into trouble, and you're among a lot of like-minded people. A good friend of mine goes to a number of such events every year, and he usually trucks his vintage ride there, and he and his wife have a great time. And its always nice just going out for short rides from home on the weekend etc, too. Hell, I might even get the antique bug again some day too! But I don't think I'll ever do those big miles on one again. As far as the going rate on a restored 45"er... check the "completed auctions" feature on eBay. I, myself, am no longer up on antique bike values. Hope this helps Good Luck Gary

AMR500 Supercharger nice

Flatheads Nuckleheads Shovelheads Panheads Harley-Davidson’s are all good Harley’s always will be

PS it was on a 1937 WL 45ci.

@mcflathead

7 жыл бұрын

Actually it was a WLDR... the hot 45 for 1937.

What transmission use for that engine?

@mcflathead

6 жыл бұрын

Triumph 4-speed

@cithiusharisax

6 жыл бұрын

mcflathead ohh.... that is why. The original transmission is not really good for speedy. Triump make it fast. I own 47 wlc and have a lot of experiences with original transmission.

@mcflathead

6 жыл бұрын

The original trannys seemed to be decently engineered, but not meant for speedy shifts. And of course, having the kicker on the end of the countershaft meant that if you dropped the bike on the right side, you would usually end up with a bent countershaft... and then the bearings would quickly grind themselves up, and all sorts of transmission mayhem would ensue! Around here, at one time (the 1980's) you could easily pick up a complete WLC engine for $400, but a tranny would cost you four times that, if you could find one! I actually had six or seven used WLC countershafts, and they were all bent... every last one... from about .018" to .025". Pretty hard to fit them with bearings at .0015" or so! Anyhoo... good for you for still riding an old WLC! If you cover any significant distance, it takes plenty of maintenance to keep these old girls running. I rode this UL flathead until a couple of years ago, when I holed a piston about 800 miles from home. After all the expense of trucking it home, I was ready to just fix it up and sell it... but after a lot of deliberation and some discussion with a good friend of mine, I decided to turn it into a Bonneville racer. We currently hold a record at 124 mph. Ride-on!

Don't waste your time, he won't understand.

whey does it also have to be the ugliest :'( lol

я так понимаю клапана на выпуске у него покрыты напылением керамики чтоб не прогорали?

@mcflathead

6 жыл бұрын

If I understand the translation correctly, I believe that you are asking if we use ceramic coated valves, and the answer is no. On the current big flathead racer, we have valve rotators on the exhausts. We are thinking of ceramic coating the piston crowns.

@Korol033

6 жыл бұрын

отличная работа, какой компрессии удалось добиться? степень сжатия?

@mcflathead

6 жыл бұрын

Thank-you. It is a flathead, so the compression is only 6.2:1. You just can't get much higher than that without impeding the flow in and out of the cylinder. But there other ways of making power...