Bonneville Adventure Unfolds

I have a lot of full custom bikes and love to ride them but when you’ve got that much money and time invested in something it’s hard to take it out and beat it up on a daily bases. When you leave a $50k bike on the street in front of the bar its hard to be relaxed.

Not that everyone shouldn’t own one or two full customs, but that you should also have the modified stocker that is replaceable. That’s what I set out to do with a ugly, heavy, 1999 Harley Dyna.

First thing to go was the front end which I replaced with a inverted sport bike model that is running big radial brakes. I set it up with a set of Black Bike Aluminum spoke wheels and some oversize Ohlins shocks on the rear.

The only frame modification was cutting short the rear fender struts and removing the oversize square box on the side of the bike that held all the electrical.

I beat out some aluminum panels to thin out the look of the center of the bike under the seat and fashioned an aluminum tail section to give a bit of a dirt bike feel. I fabricated the gas tank, a set of 1-inch motocross bars, and a simple set of mid controls. I got an Acerbis LED headlight and some cool parts from my bro at MX1West to give the bike a tough style. A few little pieces here and there and I was ready to head off to Sturgis for the yearly trip.

The bike performed great and got plenty of looks too. I pissed off hundreds of baggers as I flew past them on the many amazing roads of the Black Hills. The Ohlins rear suspension and upside-down front end, not to mention a lot of brakes, placed the Dyna in a whole other riding bracket. Able to lean the bike over in a corner and not worry about the kickstand or controls slapping the ground gave the rider piece of mind and confidence.

I was helping Dirty Dave finish up the build on his Streamlined Sportster for Bonneville Salt Flats, when he talked me into taking something to the salt myself. I figured the Dyna might be fun, so I changed the bars out for some clip-ons and banged out a front fender. We rolled into Bonneville after a couple late nights of working on the bikes, plus a 12-hour drive, and settled right in with the other salty dogs. We took the first day to get everything squared away with tech inspection and registration, then rolled out to the track the next morning.

The first run I figured I’d go out and feel the salt under my tires and maybe just break 100mph. Taking the bike up to speed felt smooth and comfortable; I think all the time I’ve spent on dirt has paid off. As I passed 107mph my speedo cut out, so I just kept rolling it on, and before I knew it I’d passed the 3rd mile and it was time to start decelerating. Rolling into the pit I heard over the speaker my numbers, and a time of 131mph. Right away I thought to myself, “let’s go again.”

I changed out a sprocket, and despite the 3.5 hour lines to reach the run gate, we purserviered, and got faster every time. Next run was 139.5. That’s when I realized I was getting close to the record of 142.7mph. All of a sudden the game changed, and I had a mission. I spent the next two days tuning and returning to check in. I needed to carve out faster times with each pass. On the last day, mechanics, salt conditions, wind and air denisity came together for a record run of 143.57mph, and a back up run of 146.54mph for an average record of 145.05mph in the 1650cc MPF class. An AMA Land Speed record, not bad for a stocker!

The Tech Side of the Build, by Steve Kelly

Satya Kraus has very strong thoughts about Harley’s idea of motorcycle styling, basically, he sums it up in one word: shit! But he is happy to rant on further should you press him on the subject, he will probably start by telling you something like, how the Milwaukee engineers and designers just keep piling on the crap until the bike needs a larger engine just to get it moving. But he has ideas about this too, thinking that maybe it is Harley’s strategy to sell more engine upgrade parts. Satya concludes that perhaps he’s not the greatest business man, but hand on heart, he can honestly say that all of his custom motorcycle looks good and they go damn fast too.

I was therefore surprised to learn that Satya now believes that not everything is bad about a current model stock Harleys, and that he could, and indeed has, uses one for the basis of a hybrid custom/stock project. He told me for example that the frame and swingarm setup of the FXD make up a solid chassis that handles the road nicely. Wow! Praise in deed from the man who had told me in the past that if it isn’t unique, and completely one off, hand made custom, he is not interested! That is paraphrasing what he actually said, but I’m sure you get the drift.

Unquestionably, the stock Harley-Davidson Twin Cam is overall a good, clean engine. But when you add a Wiseco 95” kit, some hot cams, a Mikuni carburettor, and port the heads it has some real guts. Of course, it always helps to drop some of the weight, so Satya cut off the 10lbs of weight that constitute the passenger peg mounts, honestly, that is what they weigh in at! Satya also harvested some of the electrical mounting parts to trim the weight further still. What he is left with is a pretty much stock electrical system that now fits into that nice spot under the seat (where Harley should have put it in the first place) and is closed in by aluminium side panels. Satya has also cut off about half of the rear fender mounting horns to shorten the look of the rear end and hand formed the sweet looking aluminium tail section around them, to keep things looking clean, and to use up the empty space, he has cleverly mounted the battery inside. Through a friend he found a nice adjustable inverted front end, which came with the Dual Tokico 4 piston callipers, and lightweight triple trees. All Satya had to do to make this front end fit was to made up a new headstock stem that would fit the bearings in the Dyna neck and a set of axle spacers for the forks so that he could run a ¾” axle. After procuring a set of 40-spoke aluminium hubs and rims from Black Bike Wheels, he snagged some ZX6 front rotors and nearly had the front end finished. For the rear suspension he is running Ohlins Piggyback shocks simply because they perform wonderfully. The rear brake is also a 4-piston Tokico calliper that Satya has once again mated with a ZX6 front rotor. You could say, this bike has a lot of brakes!

Next he bent up some dirt bike style handlebars and fitted one of his own Kraus Motor Company design and manufacture Twist Brake hand controls. A friend runs MX1West.com and is the US distributor for Acerbis aftermarket products so he hooked Satya up with a LED Vision HP headlight setup, some fork covers and a few other goodies. It is good to have friends in the high places!

Another mate, Obie Beaver hooked up Satya with the, oh so stylish, hand tooled seat. So with the simple addition of some stickers on the sides of the raw aluminium tank Satya was ready to head off on a rather long shack down road trip, Northern California to Sturgis South Dakota. On the way out of California through the Sierra Mountains Satya was able to appraise how well this hybrid Kraus/Dyna really handles, he discovered that it pushes through the corners nicely, with none of the washed out feeling you often feel with a stock Milwaukee offering. Satya soon found himself hitting some of the tighter hairpin corners at well over safe road going speeds. The suspension felt smooth, the brakes were strong and the bike didn’t have any heavy feeling to it.

AMAZING SATYA DYNA BONNEVILLE TECH CHART

General

Owner: Satya Kraus
City/State: Cazadero, CA.
Fab. By: Satya Kraus
Year: 1999
Model: Harley Dyna fxd
Time: 1 month

Engine

Year: 1999
Model: Twin Cam
Builder: Kraus Motor Co.
Ignition: Dynatek
Displacement: 95″
Pistons: Wiseco
Heads: Ported
Carb: Mikuni
Cam: Andrews
Air Cleaner: K&N
Exhaust: Custom Thunder Header
Primary: Stock

Transmission

Year: 1999
Make: Harley
Shifting: 5 speed

Frame

Year: 1999
Make: FXD Dyna
Rake: stock
Stretch: stock

Forks

Type: Inverted
Builder: Kawasaki
Extension
Triple Trees: Kawasaki

Wheels, Tires, Brakes

Front Wheel: Black Bike, 40 spoke, Aluminum
Size: 19″ x 3.25”
Front Tire: 110
Front Brake: Dual Radial 4 piston Tokico
Rear Wheel: Black Bike, 40 spoke, Aluminum
Size: 18”x 5.5”
Rear Tire: 180
Rear Brake: 4 piston Tokico

Painting

Painter: none
Color: Raw Aluminum
Graphics: Stickers on tank
Molding: none
Chroming: none

Accessories

Bars: Kraus Motor Co.
Risers: Kraus Motor Co.
Hand Controls: Brembo
Fuel Tanks: Kraus Motor Co.
Front Fender: Kraus Motor Co.
Rear Fender: Kraus Motor Co. Aluminum Mud Guard
Seat: Obie Beaver
Foot Controls: Kraus Motor Co. Mids
Mirrors:
Oil Tank: Stock
Headlight: Acerbis
Taillight: Kraus Motor Co.
Speedo: Trail Tech Computer