Taking It To the Tens
TAKING IT TO THE TENS
Grudge night at the drags. Pay $2, sign on the dotted line and you get to face off against your buddies in a real, no-if-ands-or-buts race on a real dragstrip Find out just how fast your bike really is, discover what 120 mph feels like. all perfectly legal, without bothersome police or confusing corners getting in the way of the fun.
Vehicles of every description pack the eight pre-stage lanes, funneling into the two-lane dragstrip. a quarter-mile asphall arrow pointing from the standing start tc the elapsed time and terminal speed lights. with an equal distance of shut-off length and return roads beyond. Cars wit rumpa-rumpa idles, quiet street bikes, pro stock motorcycles with wheelie bars trail ing behind, expansion chambered RD35Os manned by high school kids.
Two riders sit on standard Suzuk GS1000s, waiting their turn to face off. Kawasaki owner approaches. "Hey," h says, `1 heard those Suzukis are suppose to be fast, but you guys are only turnin 12.20s. You must be donk riders. eh?"
"The guy didn't recognize me and By ron," said Terry Vance as he told the stor later, Vance and engine builder Byro Hines hold the Pro-stock record at 9.24 sec 144.92 mph. Vance lives and works dra racing. So when he and Byron want a littl fun, they head out to the Wednesday night drags and race each other on their stock Suzukis.
The next Wednesday. Vance returns with an 1176cc RC Engineering engine fitted into his stock-looking (except for a header exhaust system) motorcycle. He turns 10second E.T.s and never sees the Kawasaki owner again.
Everybody understands acceleration: everyone understands the drag strip. Walk up to somebody at the local root beer stand and tell him that your bike can turn lap times of 2: 10.76 on the Ontario long course and chances are he won't know what you're talking about. Tell him that you've got a 10-second street bike, and he'll know you've got a fast motorcycle. Vance likes to tell - people that anybody
can twist the throttle in a straight line. It isn't quite that simple. but it is true that the key to low E.T.s is horsepower. Horsepower produces acceleration, acceleration pro duces thrills, and only your wallet limits the quantity or quality of fun and thrillsnice, respectable. sanctioned, legal thrillsavailable at the dragstrip.
Legal thrills. That's the whole idea of this story. Take your stock Il-second Su perbike and turn it into an eye-opening. arm-straightening drag racer. a machine capable of chugging around the street dur ing the day and waking the dead at the drags on grudge night.
The plan was to start with one each of the top-of-the-line Superbikes: Honda CBX. Kawasaki Z1-R, Suzuki GSI000EC. Yamaha XS 11. Each bike was supposed to go to a different engine builder, be outfit ted for 10-second quarters, pass a 1000mile street reliability test, and head for the dragstrip. The rules were simple. Anything goes in engine modifi cations, but engines must be normally aspirated and all parts must be readily avail able to the public. Three dragstrip modes were plann ed: 1) as prepared for street use, stock suspension,
Legal thrills at the dragstrip All it takes is money to turn your superbike into an ET-eating quarter-mile weapon.
stock rear tire, stock gearing with baffle in place: 2) as above, but without baffle: 3) with open pipe and with wheelie bars and slick allowed. The plan didn't work quite as expected. Suzuki loaned a stock GS 1000 and it went off to RC Engineering. There were no ZI Rs available from Kawasaki headquarters, so we borrowed a privately owned exam ple, right out of the crate, and delivered it to Yoshimura R&D of America. Yamaha had an XSI1, which went to Denco Indus tries. Honda accepted the invitation but because the CBX has been in. er, short supply, they weren't able to loan one in time for our deadline. Because we'd held the other three makers to our timetable, we proceeded minus Honda. The tuning shops were our choice. The factories were not consulted, mostly be cause we wanted to clearly draw a line: this was our project. We were modifying the engines
and running them hard, so we reckoned the risk should be ours alone. (A good decision, as it happened.) RC's Pro-stock bike is sponsored by Suzuki. so that assignment was easy. Yoshimura R&D builds winning road rac ing Superbike Production Kawasakis, and we figured they'd be able to adapt. Denco is one of the few shops working with the XS1I. They were willing to try some parts they're developing, although they weren't on the market yet, so again, we assumed all risk. When the modified Kawasaki, Suzuki and Yamaha were delivered, each was tested for sound level using the California
Highway Patrol standard measurement procedure. After 1000 street miles, each machine was re-tested. So far, so good. But when staff members started roll-on comparison tests on the dragstrip (the three motorcycles ridden side-by-side in a certain gear at 60 mph. then given full throttle at the same time) the Denco XS II lost a piston and rod. The four pistons in the engine were the only ones in existence. Rather than jury-rig the rest of the equipment to a stock XS 11, we withdrew the bike from competition. The standard XS II has proven itself bullet proof in stock form, even when ridden hard, so the mishap was no fault of the design or the factory. We consoled our selves with the knowledge that anybody who's never blown an engine isn't trying hard enough. At any rate, the four-bike racing team turned into a two-bike racing team. Hap pily, both survivors made it deep into the lOs with stock tires and suspension and both clocked better than 140 mph on a half-mile straight. Trials, we had. Thrills, we
John Ulrich
