Toxic Avenger
TOXIC AVENGER
Germany to Russia: We’ll see your chopped Urals, comrades, and raise you a turbo’ed, gasmasked Kawi streetfighter
THREE YEARS AND $35,000 IN THE MAKING, IT MAY BE THE ULTIMATE badass magazine project bike, a turbocharged, nitrous-injected calling card for the German monthly Fighters, a mag dedicated to stripped-down tuner specials, still wildly popular in Deutschland. Staffer Mick Hüby is the man behind the beast, nicknamed "Nosfearatu," a wordplay on the giggle juice that gets stuffed into its cylinders, the classic 1922 vampire flick Nosferatu and the feeling of trepidation that sweeps over its rider just before launch.
“It’s difficult to handle the clutch, the NOS, the turbocharger and the airshifter at the same time-and all of it without a wheelie bar. In fourth gear, the rear wheel just lights up!” says Hüby, still wide-eyed from the memory of his first dragstrip runs. Technique lacking, he nonetheless posted a 10.5second pass with a 150-mph terminal.
None too shabby for a denuded 1986 Kawasaki GPz750 Turbo punched out to 810cc via a Wiseco piston kit. Of course, there’s a little more to it than that. The stock cylinder head is much-massaged, runs oversized outside oil lines, is held down by beefy APE studs and spins its twin bumpsticks via a heavy-duty camchain. Many hours of R&D went into the induction system, what with ported intake tracts, fuel-injection tweakage, hooking up a Sytec fuel pump (capable of flowing 47 gallons per hour), handfabbing a pressure regulator and fitting a variable turbo wastegate, rider-settable from 10 to 22 psi of pressure. Then there’s the really addicting speed secret, nitrous oxide, fed via two NOS bottles, one sunk into the gas tank between the rider’s legs (scatter shield, anyone?), an auxiliary unit perched atop the tripleclamp because no matter how much NO2 is onboard, it’s never quite enough. Boost maxxed out, nitrous flowing freely, and running C16 race gas ($15 the gallon!), Hiiby figures Nosfearatu is laying down about 220 rear-wheel horsepowerand getting all of 12 mpg.
Mind you, this kind of flagrant squandering of precious fossil fuel is not looked upon kindly by the Greens in German government, who have deemed that a 20 percent power increase is all its citizens will be allowed. Anything more is strictly verboten. Adhering to the letter of the law, Hiiby would have been able to add a whopping 23.6 horsepower to his Kawasaki’s dyno readout, not the 102-bhp bump he’s now seeing.
“At every stage of the tuning process, I brought my parts to the TÜV (think nationalized DMV with a Big Brother mentality) for approval,” he says. “On the street, I’ll have to lower the turbo pressure and ride without the NOS to enjoy the bike legally.” Commendably, Mick uttered this last with a straight face.
End-run around the TÜV complete, Hiiby turned his attention to the chassis. In need of wheelbase to keep the 452-pound Kawi from rotating about its rear wheel and flyswatting him into the asphalt, he raked the front end 3 degrees and had frame specialists Fisher extend the swingarm 3.9 inches. Now the axles span some 63 inches. As the stock fork was deemed a little weedy for the speeds now involved, a massive Showa upside-downer from a Suzuki GSX-R1000 was brought in. To this was plumbed a hell-for-stout set of Spiegler eightpiston calipers squeezing 12.6-inch floating rotors. Tire-screeching stops-R-Us.
But what Hiiby really needed was a signature item to set his machine apart from the squadrons of streetfighters plying the backroads of Düsseldorf. His background in race-car prep assured that Nosfearatu was professionally turned out, but something more was required to really cap the project.
“We wanted something different than the usual streetfighter design,” the 36-year-old relates. “Actually, I didn’t know what to put up front. We tried different stuff, nothing really great. Finally, I came up with the gasmask idea, projectorbeam headlights fitting perfectly in the eyeports.”
Presto! Instantly identifiable and a great brand builder for his magazine, judging by its jump in readership anytime a Nosfearatu installment ran. Hmmm...hey Mick, willing to relocate? -David Edwards
