Double Trouble V-Rods

BOTH THESE Harley-Davidsons are ridden hard, real hard. The idea of Shades bolting twin turbos to his bike surprised no-one — if you’re going to ring a bike’s neck, you may as well ring it properly — and once the turbos were fitted, that’s exactly what happened — until the front cylinder let go with a bang and a trail of smoke billowing from the exhaust pipe!

Fortunately, Shades, an excellent rider, instinctively pulled in his clutch lever taking anymore unnecessary load off the already screaming motor.

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Once you start making hard revving motors work harder you really need to know mechanically what to do. Unfortunately for Shades, the twin turbos were designed and fitted by a mechanic who should stick to basic motorcycle servicing.

The now disabled twin-turbo Night Rod was trailered home, and while there, Shades did his homework and sourced a H-D mechanic who seems to know his stuff and used his dyno to run the Night Rod before releasing it to the destroy the streets.

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With the turbos unbolted and the motor removed from the frame, a compression test was carried out to confirm failure. Once dismantled the motor damage was not as bad as first thought. The rebuild consisted of fitting a new set of sleeves which would now house a pair of CP 4.134 forged pistons with a compression ratio of 9.5:1; a set of heavy duty Carrillo conrods, valves, valve springs and collets.

The gearbox also had a little tidy up with a street-cut second gear.

A heavy duty TPP variable pressure clutch to stop the twin turbos’ power slipping also made its way into the tidy up.

When you fit turbos to any motor you need to get the air induction ratio right. This twin turbo is taken care of by an Aero Flow Breather Box and filter to match. You’ll notice the Breather Box sitting snuggly through the centre of the air-box cover (which in most motorcycles is where the fuel tank sits; in the V-Rod, the fuel cell sits under the seat).

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Once the motor was rebuilt and the turbos were mounted properly, a new turbo drain solution was sorted as well as a better way for the crank to breathe.

A new exhaust system was also designed and fitted.

The dyno dialled the bike in at 200 horsepower with a 15 lb boost for the run-in period with a promise of extra ponies after the period is completed also adding a boost in the engine rev limit.

Pimp’s Night Rod is no slouch either — the SMT edge-series, 21-inch front wheel rarely stays on the ground. 

Its motor is pumped up with a 1434 cc big bore stroker kit consisting of racing-specification cylinders hiding CP pistons with 12:1 compression ratio helped along by flowed heads that push the spent gases out through a set of Vance & Hines two-into-one competition-series exhaust.

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Of course the crankcases needed to be split and bored to take the extra load and to also have a welded-up stroker crankshaft fitted.

Kerry also owns a turbo Street Rod which at shoot time was having a rest interstate from having its neck rung.

All the Brothers have fitted ape-hangers to their V-Rods, and after viewing the pre-edition pictures, Pimp has decided to also match Shades’ handlebar colour choice.

Subtle looking motorcycles are neither Brothers idea so Kyle from Smith Concepts on Sydney’s North Shore was chosen for the paintwork and sticker making duties, therefore making both bikes fully recognisable as belonging to Members of the Mongols Nation 1% Motorcycle Club.

While using tradesmen from the North Shore both seats were reworked by East Coast Trim Shop.

Pimp 1%er and Shades 1%er dedicate this feature to our Brothers and Supporters locked down all over the world and send much love and respect to our California Brothers being the original authors of ‘Respect Few Fear None’ who have held it down solid since the Nations inception in 1969 which is why every Mongol in the world knows its RFKNSIDE… HUAH!

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Photos by Wall 2 Wall; words by Ferret