Buell Land Speed Racer Build - Part 1

Brand new supports tack welded in for the new tail section which will house all the electronics

Dreaming big is something I am sure that all of us enjoy on a daily basis. Whether it be winning a lottery ticket and never having to work again or thinking up ways to improve our daily existence. Well folks, my big dream for the last five or so years has been to race on the revered salt flats of Bonneville, Utah. 

My quest for speed keeps me awake at night thinking on build ideas and ways to redesign my beloved 2000 Buell M2 Cyclone. Many regarded these Buells as just the spare parts for a chopper but that comes from a severe lack of understanding about how well this bike performs. Erik Buell designed one of the greatest sport bikes in existence and many of his designs are now the norm. 

The older tube frame Buells are without a doubt one of the best city bikes you could ever ride and even better on back country roads. The deep roar of the torquey motor and how they dive into turns begs you constantly lay on the throttle. These bikes were made for an area such as San Francisco and the surrounding hills and proved to be an amazing asset when lane splitting through the never ending six lanes of traffic on the freeways.

What yall are seeing is phase one of my "Buella" rebuild. This bike has been on the shop table for a few years it seems to be and has had to wait her turn to fully go under the knife with so many other projects taking precedence while growing the music label portion of Rusty Knuckles. Now that we have many areas free and clear, we are aiming for a test and tune at the ECTA Ohio Mile on May 3 & 4th weekend in 2014 as the first open runway course for land speed racing. 

Getting ready for track is no easy feat and there is a plethora of machining, welding and fabrication to be done in order to pass tech inspection. Plenty of updates will be reported on and showcasing the progress. 

The 2000 Buell Cyclone is getting an overhaul to its frame and sheet metal then onto all mechanical aspects

Out with the old cast aluminum swingarm and in with the new tubular steel design to be race ready

Randy of Crafters Metal Fab has a heavy piece of round steel pipe used for dump truck bushings to cut down to size on the lathe and get set up to add as the main axle within the swingarm.

Update on Erik Buell Via Cyril Huze Blog

If ya haven't ridden a Buell, well ya haven't ridden a modern sport bike built right here in America. Forget about taking a sportster motor out of the older tube frame models and popping it into a chopper frame. You are basically robbing yourself of one of the best riding torque beasts in existence. Erik Buell has been an amazing innovator in the Harley realm and we can thank him for many innovations. Its great news to see that he is carrying on after the debacle with corporate Harley Davidson and hopefully many more racing championships and innvoation will be coming the way of Erik Buell Racing.

Link to original post on Cyril Huze Blog

175 HP 389-pound EBR 1190RS

On October 15, 2009 Harley-Davidson announced that production of Buell motorcycles were immediately discontinued. The economy started to tank in 2008 and in 2009 sales of new motorcycles crashed. At the time, Harley-Davidson CEO Keith Wandell statement to the media was “The fact is, we must focus both our effort and our investment on the Harley-Davidson brand, as we believe this provides an optimal path to sustained, meaningful, long-term growth”. In a press conference a couple of hours later, a very emotional Erik Buell confirmed the sad news he received from Harley-Davidson. What was not disclosed at the time and that only Erik knew was that he had lost it all, even the rights to the Buell Motorcycle name. A musician, Erik turned to his guitar for therapy, then decided to start a new independent venture called Erik Buell Racing (EBR)

175 HP 389-pound EBR 11, aiming for championships in 2012

From the liquidation sale of Buell Motorcycles Company, Erik kept a small building in East Troy, a 40-minute drive from Milwaukee. Erik Buell Racing is financed by his own money and other small private investments. To help cash flow, some income comes from design consulting jobs for other companies. Erik is now looking for a $20 million investment to finance development and production The goal with Erik Buell Racing is to focus on being an American manufacturer of race bikes and parts to challenge foreign manufacturers with invention and intellectual property. To go beyond by doing radical things that the rest of the racing world has never done. Last summer at the Superbike series in Lexington, Ohio, Buell debuted a pro racing version of the 1190RS, the first offering from his new company. The rider finished a respectable 10th. Later, at the German Superbike Championship, an early customer entered with an EBR bike and won, beating out established competitors on Ducatis, BMWs and KTMs…




Buell’s innovation include: Zero Torsional Load (ZTL) brake, which lightens wheel weight by eliminating the need for hubs, the underslung mufflers placed under the engine to limit noise and maintain a lower center of gravity, a fuel tank integrated within the bike frame with optional carbon fiber version which reduces vibrations and shaves off even more weight from the frame. Tthe 175 HP 389-pound EBR 1190RS is a full 50 pounds lighter than some competing bikes. The bike has been a hit in motorcycle shows here and abroad with Erik Buell signing 1 and 3-year sponsorship agreements for two riders to race in the American Superbike Championship. EBR is currently building out an international dealer network, and at the end of year 2012 the company plans to reach a production level of about 850 bikes with 50% expected to be exported. The 1190RS will be racing in Daytona in 3 weeks (March 15-17) at the 2012 Superbike Championship. “We found an additional 10 mph in the post season, and the bike can reach 213 mph in race trim,” Buell says. It would make the 1190RS the fastest motorcycle manufactured in the U.S…

Yesterday evening Feb. 22, 2012, Erik Buell Racing announced that it has partnered with Hero MotoCorp. The deal sees Hero becoming the title sponsor for two teams in the AMA Pro Racing National Guard Superbikes Championship — Team Hero and AMSOIL Hero, while Erik Buell Racing will give Hero design and technology inputs for bikes destined for the Indian market.

The Unauthorized "Scott Free" Technique for Changing Buell Isolators

How often have you spent hours working to take apart a piece of machinery and walked away frustrated that the manual in no way shape or form was created by the person actually working on the object in question? Yes, this happens all the time unfortunately. Our Buell build left us hanging this past Saturday with utter frustration over the isolators on the swingarm. Our chain block was put into overtime lifting, descending, lifting, hanging, banging and cussing like there is no tomorrow in frustration over removing these damn isolators that dampen the vibration where the swingarm and motor mount connect to the frame on early Buell models. 

When in doubt, search out the internet and type in a myriad of questions on how to fix what ya need. After a few queries we found several options and one amazing link lead us to the page of Daniel C. Starr and his ingenious tool. Below is a repost from Daniel's site and his home made custom tool for replacing the isolators. If only we could have found this before we started to tear right into the bike, doh! 

Link over to The Unauthorized "Scott Free" Technique for Changing Buell Isolators

Tube frame Buell islotator that is damaged and needs replacing

"Tube-frame Buells use what are more or less the same rubber biscuit "isolators" as the Harley touring bikes (no surprise there; Erik Buell is said to have invented the system). And, from time to time, these isolators wear out. The symptom I noticed was a lot of vibration through the footpegs, especially when the bike was heavily loaded (i.e., with gear for the week-long trip to Deals Gap I was about to depart on) and hitting any kind of a dip in the road. And when they start failing, riding is not an option--these things are chunks of rubber and metal that are glued together and support the weight of the bike and rider in a shear mode. When they start coming apart, there ain't nothing keeping your ass off the pavement. The photo at right shows just how far my right-side isolator had gone by the time I discovered it was failing. The end plate (which nestles into the frame) had separated from the rubber over close to half the isolator's circumference. Not at all a good thing. I had to replace these puppies right now. Here's how I did it.

On some bikes (the Harleys, the S2 and earlier models, and the X1 Lightning), the rear isolators are held in place by a bolt-on plate that lines them up and squeezes them into position. On these bikes, replacing the suckers is easy. But on some models--S1 Lightning, S3/S3T Thunderbolt, and M2 Cyclone), the isolators are slipped into recesses in the frame before the engine and swingarm block are lifted in from below. That is, there's no removable piece providing access.

The shop manual says you're supposed to remove the engine from the frame to change the rear isolators. Aiee! most customers say in response. So various imaginative people have come up with schemes to free the rubber biscuits without having to hang the frame from an engine hoist while strapping the motor to a floor lift (and by the way, disconnecting every oil hose and half the electrical wiring on the bike). We had some motivation here.

Oh, and of course you may not be doing this because the isolators have died; you may simply want to replace a worn drive belt (especially if your belt was set up too tight by the selling dealer, which many tube frame Buell belts were). That's what led me to develop this scheme. Word to the wise: if you're going to go to the effort (even the significantly reduced effort under my scheme) to remove the isolators, you might as well replace all the stuff that's replaceable here. In other words, if the only thing "bad" appears to be the belt, replace the isolators at the same time; if the isolators look bad and the belt looks OK, replace the belt anyway. There's nothing worse than having to rip the bike apart a year later because a belt or an isolator that looked OK the last time you had the bike apart is now going south on you. How did I learn this? Because I replaced the belt at 40,000 miles and didn't replace the isolators while I had things apart, of course...

Also, keep in mind that I'm not a Buell employee, and Buell didn't approve of this procedure (or even look at it, far as I know). It worked for me, and it was a lot easier than the procedure found in the manual--but remember that 30 years ago some aircraft mechanics were saying the same thing about using a fork lift to remove/install the engines on a DC-10, and we all know how that turned out. I make no warranty that this procedure will work for you. Be careful out there...

So, with that in mind, let's get started:

Step 1. Get the bike up in the air and remove the back wheel, hugger and belt guards. Make sure you have plenty of room to move around beneath its nether regions.

Step 2. Put a jack (preferably one with wheels) under the transmission to support its weight, and then remove the two big allen bolts that hold the isolators to the swingarm block. These are 1/2" head allens. If you don't have an allen socket of that size, Lafayette has a cheap substitute: buy a 2" long by 1/2" "coupler nut" and stick it into a (six point) 1/2" socket. Voila! An Allen substitute! Be careful removing the bolts; you don't want to mess up the threads. In particular, make sure you've got the jack adjusted so that the bolts aren't snagging on the isolator base plates as you take 'em out. It's surprisingly easy to monge the threads.

Step 3. Assemble the spreader tool shown below (Note--click on any of these pictures to expand it). The center piece of the tool is about six inches of 3/8" threaded rod from the hardware store. The pieces on it, from left to right, are a 3" piece of stout tubing (I used a leftover Harley Sportster turn-signal stalk, thereby keeping the whole thing an "Authentic Harley Special Tool"), a regular 3/8 nut, a jammed-together pair of 3/8" nuts (one of them's a locknut; it's inside the wrench and the two are held together with Loctite. In the best of all possible worlds, the central nut would be welded to the threaded rod), half of a 9/16" box wrench, and the other turn signal stalk.

Custom Buell isolator separator tool

This is what it'll look like when it's assembled and ready to go:

3/8ths threaded rod, jam nuts loctite together, 9/16th wrench, steel sheath = Buell isolator tool

Step 4. Slither up under the rear end of the bike, taking a 1/2" and 9/16" wrench and the tool you just fabricated with you. Remove the 9/16" bolt that fastens the turnbuckle to the swingarm carrier (this allows the engine and transmission to move side to side in the frame). Then remove the 1/2" bolt that holds the battery ground strap to the swingarm carrier. You'll find the hole goes all the way through the boss on the swingarm carrier, and it's tapped all the way through. So re-install the bolt from the left side, so that about 1/4" of it sticks out the right side of the boss. This provides a pin for the left end of the special tool to align on.

Step 5. Brace the cut-down 9/16" wrench part of the tool against the top of the swingarm carrier, and turn the nuts (fingers should be adequate) until the other end of the tool is pressed up firmly against the inside of the frame just above the right isolator. See the picture below:

Notice the red bar, need extra torque, use the handle of a your portable car jack

Step 6. Then, as the picture above also shows, put a big long wrench on the first nut (the one that presses up against the turn signal stalk on the left end of the tool) and turn this nut to spread the tool out and shift the engine/trans/swingarm carrier to the left. This is not actually spreading the frame; it's just compressing the left isolator. You will need to apply a lot of torque, which is why I put a long lever (a jack handle, actually) on the wrench. The cut-down wrench that's a part of the tool keeps the threaded rod from turning. Keep turning the wrench and extending the tool until you can pop out the right isolator, as seen below:

Buell isolator tool, used effectively to drop out the isolators for replacing

Notice how you've shifted the engine/trans/swingarm carrier about a quarter inch to the left--you can see this in the misalignment between the adjustment turnbuckle and the hole in the boss on the swingarm carrier. This picture also clearly shows how the cut-down 9/16" wrench is braced against the top of the swingarm carrier to keep the lock nut (and the threaded rod) from turning.

Step 7. Turn the nuts on the tool the other way (the cut-down box wrench part will flip around and brace itself against the swingarm), until you can remove the tool.

Step 8. Give the swingarm a yank to the right, and the left isolator will drop out. Now that you've got both isolators out of the way, this is a real good time to run a thread-chaser tap down the holes in the swingarm pivot. Remember that these pieces are assembled with heavy-duty red Loctite at the factory, so there's going to be some residue in there that could make it hard to get the bolts started when you re-assemble this piece. So clean those threads up now!

Step 9. Slip the new left isolator into place. Make sure it's aligned properly (see your Buell service manual). Reinstall the special tool, and repeat step 5 until you've compressed the (new) left isolator enough to slip the new right isolator into place. Make sure the belt's in the right place before you install the new isolator; the last thing you want to do is button up the job and discover the belt's dropped out! (Matter of fact, given that you've got the isolators off, inspect the belt closely--if it's even remotely near needing replacement, slip in a new one now. You'll thank yourself later!)

Step 10. Repeat step 7 and remove the special tool. You'll probably find the threads on the threaded rod are a bit monged up by now, so you may need an extra wrench to keep the rod from turning in strange ways.

Step 11. CAREFULLY start the allen bolts through the isolators and into the swingarm pivot. This can be tricky. You may have to fiddle with the jack a bit to align things properly. Be patient; you don't want to mess up the threads. The last time I did this, I found that the passage of time (and previous removal/replacement of the bolts when I did a belt replacement two years ago) had messed the threads up slightly. A quick cleanup with a 1/2" SAE fine tap solved the problem, and everything went together nicely. Don't forget the Loctite! Once both bolts are started, and you've again checked that the isolators are in the correct alignment, tighten the piss out of the bolts, to whatever monstrous amount of torque the manual specifies (about four grunts, if I recall correctly).

Step 12. Re-install the turnbuckle to the swingarm carrier. You may need to give the swingarm a little shove one way or the other to get things lined up. Re-install the ground strap (remember it bolts to the right side of the boss). Re-install belt guards, hugger, and back wheel. Lower the bike, give everything one last check, and you're ready to go."

   - Daniel C. Starr