On the Harley front, I would like to get to several different projects:
- As you will see if you click on the sidebar under the heading "Drag Racing 1985" I did a series of stories documenting my first year of involvement in drag racing. It is in six parts, beginning with When Shovelheads Ruled the World. I really would like to continue on with the story by covering the 1986 racing season wherein I finished my Knuckle drag bike and began piloting it myself. If I don't get it down on paper soon, I will find myself too rattlebrained to remember most of the details.
- I would like to do a step by step series on installing big intake valves in Knuckle heads, and the related porting work. I have a set of decent stock heads for the project, and would like to photograph the process as I go. I recently had a large batch of Knuckle valve guides made up with a 5/16" bore instead of the stock 3/8. (if you are in the market for some, go to leesspeedshop.com and follow the link to my eBay store) I just ordered some valves with blank stems so I can do some R&D. Once I have the valve specs finalized, I plan to have a bunch of them made up with grooves and tips finished to make a "simple to install" package.
- With the return of interest in Shovelhead motors (They are classics now, you know!) I have wanted to explore their flow potential a little further. Way back when I started porting heads in 1989, I did a LOT of Shovelheads. I have had good success with them over the years, but the gains that I realized in later years with Twin Cams and Evolutions never materialized on the Shovels. Part of that has to do with the fact that Shovelheads have only trickled in for porting work over the past 10 years, however, I have some new ideas that I am confident will translate into some BIG gains in flow. I would also like to document this project with photos.
While there are plenty of other shop projects that I have in mind, I am quite sure that I am already biting off more than I can chew in covering the three listed above on this blog.
As for the "Theology" half of this blog, that is a no brainer. I am still blessed with the opportunity to preach approximately once a month at Friendship Manor, a local old folks home, so I will continue to post abbreviated versions of those sermons. To supplement that, it seems that every time I open the Bible (which is daily) I find something I would like to expound upon, but of course there just are not enough hours in the day.
I do need to add one last note. All of these grandiose plans need to be prefaced with "The Lord willing." As it says in James 4: 4:13-15 "Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that."
2 comments:
What a great history lesson! Thanks for taking the time to put that to words. I would love to read about the rest of the years.
In May of 1988 I bought a freshly built drag/street bike from a guy in Hopkins. It was powered by an 88 inch shovelhead with an S&S two-throat carb. That combo was an awesome set up! The frame had been altered and it had an extended swingarm with struts. I never raced it on the strip but I shocked several Jap bikes at stop lights! I was going to try the "run what you brung" at Humboldt in 1988 but I was having trouble with the tranny staying tight to the tranny plate so I chickened out. I still have the ol' girl and she still runs strong.
Thanks for the comments Joe. Don't feel too bad about not racing. By not racing your bike in Humboldt back in '88 you probably missed out on a huge thrill. On the other hand you may have also missed out on years wasted on an addiction to drag racing with its accompanying piles of money spent feeding that habit :)
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