Is that Dwight Schrute on his beet farm?

Reminds me of my souped up mini-bike.

Stam drilled it.

Damn thing scared me when it took off down the road......

Screwing around in the field was cool and the donuts, but that high speed crap............whoa. I've stood my tractors up almost to the point of being too far, and I've come too damn close on side slopes too many times. They just aren't all that stable and that guys roll cage is zero protection......catch a rut going fast.....it's all over......and over and over

Amish folk...

That engine added adds a ton of weight to that rig, it looked llike it was pretty solid on his feet, evidenced by the fact he was drifting it down the highway....hella fun, my kinda fun!

I want one!

One of my childhood buddies has a big property on Union Hill in Redmond, a Kegerator, and a lot of gas powered toys. We do hot laps through the woods on everything from offroad scooters to beefed up riding lawnmowers, and Westfalia Vanagons synchro's that are jacked up and have a 2.5i Subaru engine conversion in them. Yeah, the M.O. is come over, drink, and drive...offroad.

It takes a lot of time and money to soup up things that were never intended to go fast or race in the first place. I never have and still don't understand it. It makes so much more sense to start with something that is intended to go fast, and then soup that up some more if it's feasible. I guess I was born to make sense.

I was visiting with a fellow last weekend who races a souped up Harley Davidson. I explained my lack of understanding. He explained that the purpose is to make whatever - the Harley in his case - go as fast as possible within the constraints of the original design. So, I'm left thinking, OK, but why the h3ll would someone want to do that, when there are motorcycles that are specifically designed to go fast enough to make that Harley look like it's standing still? Conclusion: we don't understand each other.

The basic Harley, I'm told, uses an engine design that dates to 1912. Yes, it was fast for 1912. But the Japanese motorcycles have been way outperforming Harleys for about 50 years. There are stock Yamaha and Kawasakis that make the souped up Harley look like it's standing still.

Salmo, some of the fastest bikes in the world are Harleys that run on Nitro... they will single handedly destroy any Hayabusa or GSXR in the first 60 feet... pull off the governer, the Busa will need some work, but will go over 200, but that top fuel Harley, will go 220+ in 6 seconds...the Busa would take 20+ seconds to get to that mark likely...

the engine design may date back to 1912, but they are in no way similar to todays... kinda like the first ever produced 350 (5.7), they share similarities in design, but they arent really that similar, the internal workings of them are not just your standard first run iron block boat anchors... Harley and other bike companies of the likes, went through a ton of head changes, IE Knuckel Head, Shovel head, Pan Head, ect... back in the 80,90s , the Harley used the Evo (Evolution) motor, which was 82 cubic inches, and was only a single cam motor, then came the TC 88, which was a twin cam, then the TC96 which is a larger bore and cubic inch motor, and now, the 103 cubic incher is out in 2012 bikes... the similarities that they share, is like you said, the design, which is a 45 degree V twin cylinder block... with the 88 and 96, there were A and B models, which had different blocks, but the same 45 degree design... internals were a bit different...

it all depends on what your deffinition of "fast" is, i know people that have said that their Mitsubishi Eclipse was "fast"... thats not fast, fast is stickin a 100 dollar bill on the dash board, and telling your buddy that he can have it if he can grab it, then stompin on the gas and watching the sheer terror in his face of what he just got himself into... fast is hitting 140 MPH in 4th gear with 2 gears left... fast is sub 10 second quarter miles, not light to light against a VW golf GTI...

thats with cars tho, bikes are quite a bit faster, with some Busas hitting the high 8 mark, and are still street bikes... and "fast" is usually a term used in drag racing.. the Busas and GSXRs will in no way make a V Rod Destroyer look like its sitting still... especially when someone knows how to drive it... the VRD is the production drag bike that Harley built a few years back, and fast as hell... with some slight tweaking, those bikes will run 8s all day long, and eat up some of the Japanese bikes if not most in the process... but the V Rod and VRD use completely different motors than standard Harleys, they use a 60 degree V twin motor wich are twin overhead cams, and i think Porsche had a hand in making them as well... they are also a water cooled motor, instead of air cooled... and produce a bunch more HP than the standard 45 degree Vs...

if you have never been behind a 1000 HP Harley on launch, i suggest you try it, its quite the expierience.. and i mean behind, as in behind the pipes not on the bike... only psycos ride bikes that go 220 in 6 seconds...

the video is pretty cool, looks like he swaped the gearing out obviuosly, tractors are low geared, and im thinkin he may have used the engine out of a Semi or something, since it says Volvo, im thinkin a Volvo turbo Diesel Semi motor... its written in German i think tho, so i would have do to research to find out what it really is, and im not up to that right now...

my mechanic does stuff like that, but not with tractors, he builds go carts, and im not talking about the little F1 style carts you see racing, these are like dirt track sprint cars almost, but with no "body" just a steel frame...he built one about 10 years back that had either a 650 or 750 cc Honda 4 Cylinder street bike motor on it, 4 wheeler tires, solid rear axle, ect... you couldnt get the thing out of 1st gear on his track if you had any sort of brain, but it was done on occasion, and some NDEs happened.... then as if it wasnt fast enough, a couple buddys threw a
T-3 Turbo on it, and raced a early 2000's BMW M3, and at 110 MPH, the go cart was pulling away from them...

now, he just a while back finnished his new cart, same design roughly, but with a rear swing arm like used on 4 wheelers, and the motor, of all things, is a 600 CBRR motor from the Honda CBR street bikes...

no, im not driving it

wanna go to a drag race this next year at Pacific Salmo?

RH,

Thanks for the tech talk. I am totally non-savy about souped up anything on wheels and was just contributing that I don't "get" the interest, as I've never been interested myself. My limited interest was in playing around with my first car as a shade tree mechanic in high school. 55 Chevy with a 301 bored out from 283 if I recall; then a manifold and 4 brl carb and screwed up rear suspension that actually made it a lousy car. I was happy to be rid of it since it seemed like I spent as much time working on it as driving it. Changed my focus to reliability and never looked back. Thanks for the raceway invite, but why don't you take your GF instead?

Sg

Something fit into the category of 'if it has to be explained to you, you won't get it'. One of the mysterys of life.