This is a good one for several reasons: First, it’s an FXR; second, the owner/rebuilder is a friend; third, he’s a master martial arts trainer and no one to fuck with, even if he is old, and last but far from least, is his bike building mantra. He builds bikes like no one I have ever known. But let’s back up and start from the beginning.
This is the year of the FXR for Bikernet 2011. We are building two, with Spitfire single-loop frames and girder front ends. I’m building one for my son and we are both riding to Sturgis. A lot of us are still big FXR and Evo fans, so we’re working the FXR mantra about the best H-D chassis ever built. This bike is a sharp example of the popular ’80s configuration, with an Arlen Ness faring up front. It’s even got one of those goddamn air dams at the bottom of the lower legs.
“It’s the best bike I’ve ever owned, aside from the FXR you and I built, for hot rodding around town,” Steve said.
That’s right. I currently have a 1946 Indian in my office that I traded my FXR custom to Steve for about 1997. Steve implanted his custom detail skills on it, and that puppy was beautiful. He sold it to his son and made him promise never to unload it, so you know exactly what he did. Steve’s been chasing that bike ever since.
I met Steve in the mid ’90s before he was a Dave (motorcycle gang in Washington), with Russ Tom, one of the owners of Downtown Harley in Seattle, who passed in a plane accident. Russ was a helluva bike builder. We met when I featured several of his bikes through a contact with Terry Lovering, another martial arts master, but for several years, Steve came down for Love Rides and other functions and we hung out. I trained in close quarters combat with Mark Lonsdale, and Steve is an 11-time World Sports Karate Champion, who fought and won in the Goodwill Games, and has won 160 national championship fights. He’s what you might call the master.
He gave me training tips from time to time, since he has run the same dojo in Tacoma for 25 years in the same location. Since 1977, he has trained kids, offered them crucial discipline, focus, and respect. He started teaching martial arts in the basement of his home. I’d much rather train with his lovely wife, Suzanne. If you work out with Steve, you get your ass kicked at every class. I’m too old for that.
Let’s see, how are we doing with the list? Ah, the last one. His bike-building mantra. Steve attacks a bike build like he would refine a martial arts student. He gets a bike he likes and refines every aspect of the machine without messing with the original design or structure, and paint. He did the same thing with my FXR, built primarily at High Tech Custom Motorcycles in Van Nuys. That shop is long gone.
The bike was a very sharp FXR and we featured it in VQ magazine. So what did Steve do to it? He pumped up the performance, took every chrome component off, and had them all rechromed at the same custom shop. He touched up the paint and cleared it some more. Anything that was powder-coated he stripped and powdered again. In short, he detailed and refined every aspect, and if any element was not of the finest caliber, he shit-canned it and replaced it with the best.
You would not have believed the difference once Steve was finished. He took a bitchin’ custom bike and made a Rolex out of it.
He poured the same philosophy all over this bike. It’s basically the same bike Junior Nelson built several years ago. Junior is a big-time Washington state pin striper who’s mostly into cars, but he built this FXR and it collected dust in the back of his shop.
When Steve got ahold of it, he pulled the motor, enhanced the performance package, flowed the heads, and detailed the exterior. He left the original paint alone, but added the old Arlen Ness fairing and the Ness spoiler, a handful of new pinstriping and the Irish Notre Dame character on the air dam.
“I liked the louvers on the fairing that match the Ness side covers,” Steve said.
He rechromed everything, swapped the forward controls for modified stock mid controls, re-powdered everything, added a speedo landing to the bars, and mounted a tool kit to the swingarm so he couldn’t lose it. He also added a Ness oil gauge, and Ness turn signals.
At 65, he tries to spend more time with his three sons and his daughter, drag race in the sand dunes, and hopes to ride to Sturgis with the Hamsters in the near future. We may need to start an FXR club for all us diehard FXR fans.
1993 FXRC Street cafe/salt flatter Extreme Tech Chart
Background info.
owner: Steve “Mad Dawg” Curran
Bike’s name: Irish Reaper
Brand name: Harley-Davidson
Model: FXRC
Year: 1993
Assembly: Steve Curran and Dan Eberhartd in Dan Eberhartd’s garage
Paint/graphics: JR. Nelson pin stripping, paint and graphis. Black with pearl green metal flake. House of Color. Gold leaf.
Power coating: J&D Power Coating
Motor Specs
Year: 1993
Manufacture: Harley-Davidson
Model: EVO
Displacement: 80 CU. IN.
Lower end/balancing: H-D
Cases/Cylinder heads: H-D / Screaming Eagle Pro
Piston/Cylinders: H-D / Screaming Eagle Pro high-compression forged piston kit
Carb: CV H-D
Air cleaner: H-D P&N
Exhaust: Bub
Cam/Rocker arm: H-D Screaming Eagle SE-11
Push Rods: H-D Screaming Eagle Perfect fit
Clutch: AIM
Horse power: 95.05 Back wheel 99.02
Transmission:
Year: 1993
Manufacturer: H-D
Model: FXRC
Suspension type: Coni-Holland
Style: Softtail
Forks
Year: 1993
Manufacture: H-D
Style/type: H-D narrow gluide
Wheels and brakes
Front wheel: 19
Brake caliper: H-D Rotor: Super spoke
Rear wheel: 16
Brake caliper: H-D Rotor: Super spoke
Accessories
Risers: Ness/ Curran, Eberhartd
Grips/foot pegs: PM
Hand Controls: H-D
Taillights: Cats eye
License plate mount: Ness
Mirrors: Downtown
Seat: Le Pera
Gas Tank: FXR H-D
Fenders: Front, H-D extended Rear, Ness
Gauges: Mini speedo
Foot contols: H-D
Fairing kit & side covers: Ness
A little background:
Prof. Steve Curran, Ph.D
Tacoma, Washington
11 times world sport karate champion
Goodwill games gold medalist
Winner of over 160 national and international championships
Started martial arts in Hawaii in Jan 1967
10th degree black belt
Vietnam vet
Wife: Suzanne, 7th degree black belt
Children: Brian, Craig and Kim. All 7th degree black belts
Six grandchildren,
Film and TV stuntman/actor
Worked with Chuck Norris on Walker, Texas Ranger and Chuck’s last movie, The Cutter.
Riding hard since 1965 (hard core)
First Sturgis was 1976 100th Ann. of the U.S.
Has taught martial arts in Tacoma since 1977 (school)
Contact info:
Kaicho
Steve Curran Karate
3814 N 27th St.
Tacoma, WA 98407
253-759-4262
SteveCurranKarate@comcast.net
