The Great V8 Alternative
THE GREAT V8 ALTERNATIVE
Consider it the anti-Rune
OH, WE KNOW THE PROBLEM. THE town fat cats have snapped up the only available Runes, their deposits sitting in the Honda shop-keep's safe for six months or more. So, how else for the discriminating cruiser rider to stand out in a sea of 100th Anniversary Hogs and row upon row of metric hopefuls?
You coulda had a V-Eight! Still can, actually.
As in Ford V8-60, the 136 cubicinch (2200cc) Flathead eight-cylinder car motor produced from 1937-40, good for a supposed 60 horse, and not to be confused with the larger 239-inch Flattie so beloved by nostalgia hot-rodders. Not that the short-stroke 60 doesn’t have speed in its history, used in everything from dry-lakes belly tanks to midget sprint cars to B-class hydroplanes. Motorcycles, too, with many the home mechanic slotting said motor into stretched Indian or Harley frames-or handmaking one out of waterpipe! It’s in that spirit that the Honest Charley V8 Vintage Custom was bom. For the uninitiated, Honest Charley’s (www.coker.com/flathead.asp) was established in 1948 by Charley Card, one of the first hot-rod speed shops; in fact, the man practically invented the modem mail-order parts catalog. 01’ Charley went on to his just reward in 1974 and the family kept the Chattanooga-based business shuffling along ’til 1990, when the doors were closed. Ten years later, they were re-opened by former employee Mike Goodman and Corky Coker, the latter of Coker reproduction car/bike-tire fame.
Going after what Goodman calls the “smile factor,” every V8 starts with the fork, front disc brake and headstock (plus DMV paperwork) from a donor Honda CB750 Four. Then comes the radiator and reconditioned V8-60, its only concession to modernity a solidstate Mallory Unilite ignition. Oxygen is inhaled through a vintage Stromberg two-barrel, unfiltered save for a doily of wire mesh. Power makes its way though a stock Ford clutch, hand-operated, to a one-speed gearbox-in essence, the V8 is direct drive; with no neutral, only pulling in the clutch or stalling stops power to the rear wheel. Final drive is chain. When all is said and done, the roughly hewn beast spans 66 inches between axles and weighs-in at a considerable 750 pounds or so.
Coaxed onto CW s dyno, the V8-60 delivered all of 36.2 bhp to the roller (just how did they measure ponies in ’37?), but the important number here is torque, a prodigious 60 foot-pounds at just 1000 rpm, below the idle speed of most modem motorcycles! That kind of oomph explains the bike’s onespeed tranny, although a fair amount of clutch slippage is needed to get underway-do not go challenging any Deuce coupes at stoplights. Once rolling, we got the Flathead up to an indicated 80 mph before discretion, not to mention the rigid rear end and an ineffective front brake (a mismatch between the Honda caliper and H-D aftermarket master cylinder) slowed us down. The rear dmm brake, also CB750, was well up to that task, thank goodness.
At $19,500 and sold “as is” without warranty (our 250-mile testbike was delivered with a leaky main seal), Honest Charley’s V8’nt for everybody. So far, just 15 have been built-which, of course, makes it way more exclusive than a certain “Corvair-powered” Honda...
David Edwards
