Print

Email

‘Get Your Motor Runnin’

Hopped Up Harleys and Vintage Race Bike Rebuilds Await

By Brendan Baker

Ready…cue Steppenwolf: "Get your motor runnin’. Head out on the highway. Lookin’ for adventure. And whatever comes our way…"

One hardly has to hear more than the first few lines of Steppenwolf’s "Born To Be Wild" to conjure up the image that has become a cornerstone of the motorcycle industry. That rebellious, freedom-rider image has been an advertising gem since Marlon Brando first stepped onto his ’50 Triumph Thunderbird 6T in the movie "The Wild One" (1953). It was the first Hollywood movie to clearly display the tank badge on-screen and it created a stereotype of the "outlaw biker" that lasted for decades.

More recently, the industry has seen record sales as 40 and 50 something baby-boomers look to bust out of the corporate mold, even if only for the weekend. These new outlaws may be your banker or your dentist. But don’t laugh, because this group of near-retirement-age bandits have plenty of Ben Franklins to plunk down on a custom dream bike.

In fact, recent reports say that new bike sales have increased 20-30 percent a year for the last three years, and baby-boomers account for 44 percent of those sales.

You may be saying to yourself, "Boy that’s really great, but what does this have to do with my automotive engine rebuilding machine shop?" As it turns out, it can have a great deal to do with your shop should you choose to pursue it.

The performance motorcycle engine building market is another avenue that automotive builders can take to increase business and profitability. And the good news is, you don’t really need a lot of special tooling to get started either (well, like "The Wild One," that’s not entirely true – but not a lie either).

While Harley-Davidson performance engine rebuilds may offer the most potential to a shop looking to get started without having to make a lot of specialized equipment purchases, there are other options. Vintage racing and restoration offer plenty of rebuilding opportunities as well. Although there is some rebuilding going on among the more complex Japanese bikes, the market for machine work on them is smaller and more specialized.

Dana Johnson, owner of Import Machine Service in Framingham, MA, says that the modern motorcycle market is divided between the Japanese sport bikes and Harley-Davidsons. But he notes the vintage racing market is similar to the Harley market. Import Machine Service mainly specializes in the four-wheeled variety of European imports such as Porsche, Mercedes and Volkswagen. Johnson says he’s been doing air-cooled VWs since the ’60s. However, Johnson’s Import Machine Service is well known in the vintage bike arena, too.

"The vintage and Harley markets can be pretty automotive-friendly as far as experience goes," says Johnson. "It’s an easier crossover into these bikes than into the Japanese brands. If you do foreign-car multi-valve heads with 7mm valve-stems and a Kawasaki Z-1 head comes in – it’ll be a piece of cake. Otherwise, a rebuilder not experienced with these types of tolerances might get into trouble."

For Johnson, a one-time ad in "Vintage Bike" magazine, published by a friend who is one of the nation’s leading Triumph gurus, is all it took to start his bike business. "The ad (for my company) ran 10 years ago because I helped fixed his race engine," Johnson laughs. "I don’t know if it’s a blessing or a curse. Now I’ve got Triumph work from Alaska to Florida."

"The vintage racing market has become surprisingly big," says Johnson. "There are several road racing organizations around the country that only sanction vintage bikes like USCRA (United States Classic Racing Association), AHRMA (American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association) and others. It’s a big market, but it’s also pretty specialized."

Although Triumphs aren’t the only bikes involved in vintage bike racing, they do have a certain status. "I have several Triumph riders all over the country who have national Number One plates," he says proudly. "But there are also a lot of old Japanese bikes and other European bikes like Ducati." Since IMS doesn’t do any advertising, Johnson picks and chooses who he helps carefully. By working with top riders, he puts his company in a more positive light with other racers, which also helps bring in more business.

Many jobs just come to IMS because of Johnson’s reputation as a Triumph wizard, a fact he says he still really can’t explain. The answer, however, is more than just because he is well-known in the field – he also does very good work.

"You’re working on all straightforward stuff, except you see many engines that need special attention. I’ve seen many cases where engines have been sitting around for a long time and they’re corroded. Or people have really butchered the engine over the years," explains Johnson. "For example, things like valve guide holes get all screwed up."

Finding an acceptable starting point can be somewhat of an issue also in the vintage market. "If a customer who wants to go racing sends me a head that’s a piece of junk, I send it back. I tell him, ‘for what I’m going to charge you to make this into a race head you’re better off starting with something a little nicer.’ "

Most of the street bikes Import Machine Service works on are Harley-Davidsons, but Johnson does some work on modern Japanese bike engines too. However, he believes, "a lot of them don’t need much attention – they’re disposable bikes nowadays." He is referring to the penchant "café racers" have towards riding their bikes hard for a year or two and then moving on to a newer model. Basically, these bikes become obsolete rather quickly, like computers. Johnson says that some of the pro road racers do have machine work done, but it’s a relatively narrow market.

A review of some of the popular road racing magazines like Roadracing World, will reveal that most classes are very limited as to what they are allowed to do. Classes are often limited by horsepower, which is similar to a spec class where only a limited amount of machining and modification is permitted.

Many sanctioning bodies dyno motors right when they come off the track and if the bike is over the allowable horsepower limit the racer is disqualified. Pushing horsepower to the limit is risky, Johnson points out, because "if the air changes you can easily pick up as much as 3 hp. If you’re allowed 95 hp and you say you’re making 93 hp and the air gets fat at the end of the race – there’s 3hp – and you’re eliminated."

As far as street bikes go, "the Harleys are a very lucrative market right now," says Johnson. "I’ve told people recently that if I could throw everything else out the door and just do Harley work, I’d probably make more money. But a lot of that is because I’ve been doing it for a number of years and I know it well."

Another issue for Johnson is that most of his work comes from local shops; he says he has very few walk-in customers. He does a lot of machine work for a number of little custom shops in his region but he says he has trouble selling parts with the jobs for these customers.

Many times his customer gets parts from the same place and at the same cost as he does. "So, of course I can’t get list price for the parts I sell to them," he says. Professional installers will often supply their own parts so all he can charge for is labor. "Now, when I get a walk-in customer it’s sort of a bonus because I get to sell them parts AND get the retail price."

Johnson says he is fighting a battle with trying to make money off parts. But with labor, he tries to base everything he does from an hourly shop rate. "I try to make a price menu that is, say, so much for a Porsche valve-job, and so much for a Harley valve-job, based on my shop rate," Johnson explains.

"This way I can give my customers – walk-ins or local shops – a ballpark price quote. Of course, if I buy a new machine to speed things up, I don’t lower my price to help pay for the cost of the machine," he says wryly.

Johnson points out that while his shop does have some specialized equipment for working on bike engines, there are some alternatives to simply purchasing a new machine, including retrofitting an older machine. "I have a small Serdi machine, which I use for all my valve work," he says. The Serdi works for both motorcycle jobs, and also for the more complex import automotive multi-valve engines.

Johnson claims he has become very innovative with his valve grinding machine, too, and has made a lot of special fixtures for greater repeatability. "I’ve found that fixturing is a good way to make money. If you’re going to do a job more than a couple of times it really pays off to do this."

Mike Perry, head of R&D at Kibblewhite Precision Machining in Pacifica, CA, agrees that older shop equipment is not necessarily extinct when it comes to motorcycle work. "Older valve-grinding machines can be retrofitted," Perry notes, "with many of the pieces you need available from places like Goodson Shop Supplies and others. I’d say for around $5,000 you could outfit an older machine very nicely." Although Perry says older valve-grinding machines don’t work as well with small valve stems they work adequately for the big bore domestic stuff, such as Harleys, Custom V-twins and vintage bikes too.

Kibblewhite is responsible for inventing – Black Diamond, White Diamond and Tensilite valves and valvetrain components. Perry also teaches an automotive machine shop class at the local junior college. He says the need for equipment is one of the reasons automotive engine builders balk when looking to get into the motorcycle market.

"The big thing for an automotive machine shop that wanted to start doing motorcycles would be the investment in tooling," says Perry. He explains that the latest and greatest valve grinding machines will run in the neighborhood of $25-$30,000. Therefore, he says it’s imperative for shops to research their local markets thoroughly before making a major investment.

Kibblewhite uses a Serdi 3.0, the same as Johnson’s shop, which is a smaller machine with a lighter head and a lighter spindle. And it’s easier to work with the small pilots because valve-stem diameters are much smaller for motorcycle applications – going as small as 4mm for some engines. "It can be hard to find pilots and stones for the older style hard-seat grinders," explains Perry. However, it is possible for a shop that uses a newer style seat-and-guide machine to buy tooling for motorcycle applications.

“Harley-Davidsons, on the other hand, use standard stem diameters (5/16˝) and sometimes you can get away with using the older style equipment,” Perry adds.

"One of the things you have to watch out for on the Harleys is your stem protrusions," warns Perry. "If you have too much stem protrusion, even though adjustable push-rods are available, the rocker arms will start to hit the valve covers." He says that Harley-Davidsons have notoriously bad rocker arm geometry. And with many older bikes still on the road, shops will see a lot of Harleys with cracked heads.

Most of Import Machine Service’s case work is done on a basic Bridgeport, and most of the head resurfacing is done on a milling machine, explains Johnson. One area that he has found a big advantage is in machining second spark plug holes for hemi-type combustion chambers. "I’ve found it’s a big advantage to insert a second sparkplug on the other side of the chamber to start the flame from both sides," he says, which allows him to shorten up the timing by quite a bit.

"And with today’s gasoline – it also helps decrease ping and overheating too." Normally, information like this is highly guarded by top race engineers and manufacturers, but Johnson says Porsche has been doing this for its racing programs since the ’70s, so it’s nothing new.

Market Evolution
"Another thing shops will have to do is they will have to source a new line of parts," says Perry. Machine shops looking to enter the motorcycle engine rebuilding fray should look to set up dealer accounts with parts suppliers. Perry says the motorcycle industry has tried to keep the three-tiered distribution system intact. A system he says that the automotive industry seems to have had difficulty preserving.

"The motorcycle industry is quite a bit smaller than the automotive industry – everybody knows everybody in this industry. The dealers that you have that are your customers will shun you if they find out that you’re dealing direct to people. And for the health of the industry, perhaps that’s as it should be," Perry says from a parts supplier’s perspective.

"It may not be the best for the consumer as far as competition goes, but it’s what the people in the industry have to do to make a decent living. It’s really a self-policing policy, and it has worked pretty well so far."

Harleys may be the undisputed kings of the motorcycle world, but according to Perry ATVs outsell motorcycles 2 to 1. "And then you’re getting into the small valve-stem diameters and four and five valves per cylinder. For a guy who’s doing a lot of import heads – overhead cam, twin overhead cam – it would be easier for him to make the transition to this type of engine," Perry points out. Though it is doubtful the rebuilding market is as lucrative for ATVs as it is for Harley-Davidsons, by shear volume there are bound to be opportunities.

The motorcycle industry has evolved similarly to the automotive industry in the last few years. "The trend on the OEM side is toward making things smaller and more Formula One-like," Perry says. "The motorcycle industry is trying to make all the valvetrain lighter and higher revving. It’s not unusual to have a bike right off the showroom floor that can hit 12,000 rpm."

Subsequently, on the rebuilding side it’s also becoming increasingly more sophisticated, just like automotive. "The tolerances are getting tighter and there are better manufacturing processes than a few years ago. As a rebuilder you have to be able to duplicate those," says Perry.

"What we’re seeing on the installer end is more and more shops with dynos, who are verifying horsepower claims. If someone is saying you’ll get 10 horsepower by bolting on a certain exhaust system – they’ve got to be able to get it."

Dynos are fairly affordable for a shop doing a large volume of motorcycle work, but they are more suited for the installer since they are basically chassis dynos, says Perry. "They are particularly effective in shops where there are racers that want to do things like change jets and see the differences immediately."

One of the newest attractions of Bike Week in Daytona Beach is dyno shoot-outs Perry explains. "The bike won’t see the track, but money will be wagered and bragging rights will be gained. All based on the output on the dyno."

"The Harley market is much like the muscle car market of the ’60s and ’70s. The only difference is there aren’t as many dragstrips as there were then," says Perry. He explains that Harley mania is similar to the early hot-rodding scene because riders are most interested in customizing their bikes to fit their own personality. Keeping what the factory built just isn’t acceptable to them.

"Back in the ’50s guys would buy brand new cars and rip the motor out without having any more mileage on it than driving home from the dealer," says Perry. "Guys would even try to buy brand new cars without engines. Motorcycle guys are like that today – they’ll buy a bike and rip the motor out first thing."

A DIYer’s delight: with Harley-Davidsons it’s possible to pull the heads, camshafts and cylinders without taking the engine out of the frame. And many bikers today will buy high-compression pistons with a different camshaft, have their cylinder heads ported and put it all back together – themselves. "Many of these owners are capable of doing their own installation work. Then they head to the dyno to see if they got more power than their buddy," Perry laughs.

It seems that the market for performance motorcycle engine builds is getting stronger as sales for new bikes continue to increase at a rapid rate year after year. The two-wheeled love affair is just getting started for many aging boomers looking to re-enter the market. Around 850,000 bikes were sold in 2001 and compared to performance cars, motorcycles are cheap.

If, according to statistics, the median age of today’s rider is 38, that means they were just toddlers in 1968 when Steppenwolf released "Born To Be Wild." But that doesn’t stop them from living by the classic lines of the song: "I like smoke and lightning. Heavy metal thunder, racin’ with the wind – is the feelin’ that I’m under."

Now that’s got to be good news for you!

---