Black Swan Trust
Icarus by Lock Baker of Eastern Fabrications Icarus by Lock Baker Eastern Fabrications available at Black Swan Trust, <a href="http://blackswantrust.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">blackswantrust.blogspot.com/</a>
From Lock Baker Builder of Icarus...The inspiration for Icarus was primarily to push my limits as an engine builder. You see, for years I only did the metal fabrication on my motorcycles, leaving the motor rebuilds to professionals.The problem was that the local professionals, in many instances, turned out to be unreliable, costly, and difficult to work with. I knew that in order to become a true bikebuilder I needed to master every aspect of bike construction. I had assembled a few engines in a conventional manner but nothing that proved I knew the true dynamics and intricacies of internal combustion. When you simply assemble a motor from a parts catalog you do not need to know much, other than how it all fits together. Look at a shop manual for the given engine type, follow the instructions, and presto—you have a running engine. This engine may not be a competitive race winner, but it will go down the road. I wanted to prove to myself, and mypeers, that I truly understood the mechanics and theories of internal combustion. The only way to do this was to design and build— not simply assemble—a custom engine.
I remember several years ago watching a TV program with Indian Larry. He was explaining one of his engines, one with two different Harley heads on a common crankcase. He said that he liked engines to be as bizarre and mechanical looking as possible, hence the two different heads. I couldn’t agree more! I thought that I could push that concept further still—by not usingHarley parts at all. This engine is a hybrid of different designs. The crankcase is Harley style. In other words it is a V-twin, single cam, 45-degree cylinder angle, with a gear driven breather system. The cylinders, pistons, and heads started life as Continental 0 200 parts. Continental is an aircraft engine company that primarily builds boxer style prop plane piston engines. The work involved in making this whole thing come together is too long a story to tell here, but I will cover some of the major challenges. The task of mating the cylinders to the case was a big one. Continental cylinders are “oversquare,” meaning that they have a larger bore than stroke. In this case, the bore is 41⁄8” while the stroke is only 31⁄2”. In order to make this fit the case, I needed a much larger “deck” area than a typical Harley. The cases I used were manufactured by Delkron, who were kind enough to sell them to me with a blank deck, meaning there were no stud holes. I also specified a case set up for a 1⁄4” extended pinion shaft, essentially moving the entire cam compartment over in order to make room for the increased cylinder base area. There are more differences between typical Harley cylinders and Continental cylinders. Continental cylinders have six base studs instead of the usual four, as well as an O-ring base gasket instead of a flat paper one. The base studs were a problem because two of the six studs per cylinder were located exactly where my tappet blocks were! To fix this I built up weld material outward from the deck area towards the tappet blocks then shaped them by hand, blending them into the case. This provided the extra meat I needed to accommodate these new base studs. The tappet blocks themselves then needed to be machined in order to have them fit this new deck modification. They barely fit!The connecting rods had to be custom made for a few reasons. The wrist pin was Continental and the crank pin was Harley style. Also, the distance between the two pins was much longer than a Harley. Carrillo was chosen to manufacture these custom rods, and after four months of waiting they showed up. They are the most beautiful rods I have ever seen: H-beam, shot-peened, perfect. The crank assembly was another challenge. Because of the short stroke the Continental cylinders called for, I needed to have custom flywheels made. You see, the only Harley flywheels to have a 31⁄2”stroke were 61” Knuckleheads. My crankcase calls for Evolution style pinion and sprocket shafts, meaning a corresponding set of flywheels. I called Truett & Osborn, a trusted flywheel manufacturer, and asked them if they could build these custom wheels around my custom connecting rods. Once they started, I received a phone call saying that because the stroke is so short, the nuts that hold the crank pin in place are too close to the sprocket and pinion shaft bases. Makes sense when you think about it. Luckily for me, they are cool people over there at T&O, and they came up with a neat solution: make a custom crank pin with smaller threaded ends, meaning they could use smaller nuts. Problem solved. Here’s another: Harleys have two different cylinder heads, a front and a rear. They are almost mirror images, allowing for both intake ports to be located across the street from one another. This allows them to use a common intake manifold and a single carb to feed both cylinders. Continental engines are boxer style, so every head and cylinder is exactly the same. When you take two of them and put them upright in a 45-degree configuration, they look like two rear Harley heads. This means a few things. I needed two custom-made intake manifolds and two carbs. I also needed a custom camshaft with the front two lobes reversed. In addition, the rocker arm ratio of the Continental is 1.2/1 while modern Harleys are 1.6/1. This would mean that in order for the valves to lift as much as Harley valves do, I would need a much higher lift cam. The cam design and construction was given to Redline Racing Cams out of California. It took over six months but they eventually nailed it. Thank you Redline! I could go on forever, but here is a basic synopsis of the other challenges: custom collapsible pushrods, custom intake manifolds, custom Lectron carbs, custom load bearing rocker boxes, cus-tom pushrod boots, custom top end oil drains, magneto re-degreed, custom exhaust, cylinder fins extensively clearanced, custom base studs and nuts, and I even had to make a custom valve spring compressor due to the fact that the cylinders and heads are permanently attached to each other! (No head gaskets.) The rest of the bike is every bit as wild as the engine. With the help of Acme Choppers, we made an entirely stainless steel frame in order to fit the taller engine. I made the hubs from scratch and had them laced to imported Morad rims from Spain. Bandit Machine Works provided the primary drive, which I modified to accommodate a 10-degree transmission plate tilt. This allowed me to get a fair lead on the final belt drive (an old Indian Larry trick). I also made the fuel tank from scratch out of aluminum (see past Iron- Works article for that one!). The fork is a shaved 35mm narrow glide. Everything else, including the bars, foot controls, fender struts, taillight, plumbing, seat, oil tank, and 4-bar pneumatic seat suspension were all made by me at Eastern Fabrications.I feel very satisfied with the final result. The engine runs like a top and the bike rides exactly the way I wanted it to —light, quick, agile and fun. It goes without saying that I had the help of a lot of talented and generous people. Mark Simiola, from Sterling Performance was instrumental in helping me calculate the length of the rods to get my desired compression ratio. He also
answered countless questions and helped me time the engine. Acme Choppers came through as usual with the bottom half of the frame. Clifford Frizzel from Esquire Machinehelped make the beautiful rocker boxes and decked the cases. Cooney Engraving did the custom badges that adorn the bike. Truett & Osborn, Carrillo, Delkron, and Redline all treated me with professionalism and kindness. I would like to thank all of you for your willingness to think outside the box with me. Oh yeah, the name. The story of Icarus comes from Greek myth. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman who built a set of wings that allowed man to fly. Icarus was allowed to use the wings on one condition; that he not fly too close to the hot sun, as the wings were held together with wax. As Icarus flew he did not heed his father’s warning; the wax melted and he fell to his death. I chose the name because, by using aircraft parts, I was taking a risk. I knew that if I was not careful and diligent it would not work. Luckily, patience pays off and so, this Icarus Flies.
Icarus by Lock Baker of Eastern Fabrications Icarus by Lock Baker Eastern Fabrications available at Black Swan Trust, <a href="http://blackswantrust.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">blackswantrust.blogspot.com/</a>
From Lock Baker Builder of Icarus...The inspiration for Icarus was primarily to push my limits as an engine builder. You see, for years I only did the metal fabrication on my motorcycles, leaving the motor rebuilds to professionals.The problem was that the local professionals, in many instances, turned out to be unreliable, costly, and difficult to work with. I knew that in order to become a true bikebuilder I needed to master every aspect of bike construction. I had assembled a few engines in a conventional manner but nothing that proved I knew the true dynamics and intricacies of internal combustion. When you simply assemble a motor from a parts catalog you do not need to know much, other than how it all fits together. Look at a shop manual for the given engine type, follow the instructions, and presto—you have a running engine. This engine may not be a competitive race winner, but it will go down the road. I wanted to prove to myself, and mypeers, that I truly understood the mechanics and theories of internal combustion. The only way to do this was to design and build— not simply assemble—a custom engine.
I remember several years ago watching a TV program with Indian Larry. He was explaining one of his engines, one with two different Harley heads on a common crankcase. He said that he liked engines to be as bizarre and mechanical looking as possible, hence the two different heads. I couldn’t agree more! I thought that I could push that concept further still—by not usingHarley parts at all. This engine is a hybrid of different designs. The crankcase is Harley style. In other words it is a V-twin, single cam, 45-degree cylinder angle, with a gear driven breather system. The cylinders, pistons, and heads started life as Continental 0 200 parts. Continental is an aircraft engine company that primarily builds boxer style prop plane piston engines. The work involved in making this whole thing come together is too long a story to tell here, but I will cover some of the major challenges. The task of mating the cylinders to the case was a big one. Continental cylinders are “oversquare,” meaning that they have a larger bore than stroke. In this case, the bore is 41⁄8” while the stroke is only 31⁄2”. In order to make this fit the case, I needed a much larger “deck” area than a typical Harley. The cases I used were manufactured by Delkron, who were kind enough to sell them to me with a blank deck, meaning there were no stud holes. I also specified a case set up for a 1⁄4” extended pinion shaft, essentially moving the entire cam compartment over in order to make room for the increased cylinder base area. There are more differences between typical Harley cylinders and Continental cylinders. Continental cylinders have six base studs instead of the usual four, as well as an O-ring base gasket instead of a flat paper one. The base studs were a problem because two of the six studs per cylinder were located exactly where my tappet blocks were! To fix this I built up weld material outward from the deck area towards the tappet blocks then shaped them by hand, blending them into the case. This provided the extra meat I needed to accommodate these new base studs. The tappet blocks themselves then needed to be machined in order to have them fit this new deck modification. They barely fit!The connecting rods had to be custom made for a few reasons. The wrist pin was Continental and the crank pin was Harley style. Also, the distance between the two pins was much longer than a Harley. Carrillo was chosen to manufacture these custom rods, and after four months of waiting they showed up. They are the most beautiful rods I have ever seen: H-beam, shot-peened, perfect. The crank assembly was another challenge. Because of the short stroke the Continental cylinders called for, I needed to have custom flywheels made. You see, the only Harley flywheels to have a 31⁄2”stroke were 61” Knuckleheads. My crankcase calls for Evolution style pinion and sprocket shafts, meaning a corresponding set of flywheels. I called Truett & Osborn, a trusted flywheel manufacturer, and asked them if they could build these custom wheels around my custom connecting rods. Once they started, I received a phone call saying that because the stroke is so short, the nuts that hold the crank pin in place are too close to the sprocket and pinion shaft bases. Makes sense when you think about it. Luckily for me, they are cool people over there at T&O, and they came up with a neat solution: make a custom crank pin with smaller threaded ends, meaning they could use smaller nuts. Problem solved. Here’s another: Harleys have two different cylinder heads, a front and a rear. They are almost mirror images, allowing for both intake ports to be located across the street from one another. This allows them to use a common intake manifold and a single carb to feed both cylinders. Continental engines are boxer style, so every head and cylinder is exactly the same. When you take two of them and put them upright in a 45-degree configuration, they look like two rear Harley heads. This means a few things. I needed two custom-made intake manifolds and two carbs. I also needed a custom camshaft with the front two lobes reversed. In addition, the rocker arm ratio of the Continental is 1.2/1 while modern Harleys are 1.6/1. This would mean that in order for the valves to lift as much as Harley valves do, I would need a much higher lift cam. The cam design and construction was given to Redline Racing Cams out of California. It took over six months but they eventually nailed it. Thank you Redline! I could go on forever, but here is a basic synopsis of the other challenges: custom collapsible pushrods, custom intake manifolds, custom Lectron carbs, custom load bearing rocker boxes, cus-tom pushrod boots, custom top end oil drains, magneto re-degreed, custom exhaust, cylinder fins extensively clearanced, custom base studs and nuts, and I even had to make a custom valve spring compressor due to the fact that the cylinders and heads are permanently attached to each other! (No head gaskets.) The rest of the bike is every bit as wild as the engine. With the help of Acme Choppers, we made an entirely stainless steel frame in order to fit the taller engine. I made the hubs from scratch and had them laced to imported Morad rims from Spain. Bandit Machine Works provided the primary drive, which I modified to accommodate a 10-degree transmission plate tilt. This allowed me to get a fair lead on the final belt drive (an old Indian Larry trick). I also made the fuel tank from scratch out of aluminum (see past Iron- Works article for that one!). The fork is a shaved 35mm narrow glide. Everything else, including the bars, foot controls, fender struts, taillight, plumbing, seat, oil tank, and 4-bar pneumatic seat suspension were all made by me at Eastern Fabrications.I feel very satisfied with the final result. The engine runs like a top and the bike rides exactly the way I wanted it to —light, quick, agile and fun. It goes without saying that I had the help of a lot of talented and generous people. Mark Simiola, from Sterling Performance was instrumental in helping me calculate the length of the rods to get my desired compression ratio. He also
answered countless questions and helped me time the engine. Acme Choppers came through as usual with the bottom half of the frame. Clifford Frizzel from Esquire Machinehelped make the beautiful rocker boxes and decked the cases. Cooney Engraving did the custom badges that adorn the bike. Truett & Osborn, Carrillo, Delkron, and Redline all treated me with professionalism and kindness. I would like to thank all of you for your willingness to think outside the box with me. Oh yeah, the name. The story of Icarus comes from Greek myth. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman who built a set of wings that allowed man to fly. Icarus was allowed to use the wings on one condition; that he not fly too close to the hot sun, as the wings were held together with wax. As Icarus flew he did not heed his father’s warning; the wax melted and he fell to his death. I chose the name because, by using aircraft parts, I was taking a risk. I knew that if I was not careful and diligent it would not work. Luckily, patience pays off and so, this Icarus Flies.