2001 Kawasaki Vulcan Harley FXR Kawzilla - 5-Page Vintage Motorcycle Article

Description

2001 Kawasaki Vulcan Harley-Davidson FXR Kawzilla Hybrid - 5-Page Vintage Motorcycle Article
Original, vintage magazine article.
Page Size: Approx. 8" x 11" (21 cm x 28 cm) each page
Condition: Good
...Sometimes builders have an overriding vision guiding their projects. Other times,
the inspiration may come from a single thought. Bill Collier’s Kawzilla falls into
die latter category. He thought he could fit a Kawasaki Vulcan 1500 engine into an
aftermarket- Harley-Davidson FXR frame. Why? Well, nobody’s ever done it, and that
intrigued Collier. Besides, truckloads of accessories are available for Harley-Davidsons,
so drawing from that deep well would be nice.
Collier began by purchasing a 1996 Vulcan 1500A model, which, among
Kawasaki cognoscenti, is considered to be much more powerful than the
''it current generation Classic line. In fact, enough of these bikes were sold to
make an inexpensive used donor easy to find. After procuring a candidate
S for rhe heart transplant. Collier simply dropped the engine into a Kenny
®Boyce pro-street frame from Custom Chrome. Surprisingly,
the engine slipped right into place, with the assistance of a
w
jfe couple pry-bars. Collier’s rough measurements were right,
A 3
the metric twin could fit in the American chassis. Don’t
A Beit Drive Convert
The challenge of a custom of this magnitude is so many
stages of the process depend on each other. For example,
the engine mounting bracketry couldn’t be finalized until
the powerplant underwent some major modifications. You
see, the only way the Vulcan motor was going to get the
power from the transmission to the ground was by remov-
ing the shaft drive and grafting on a pulley system.
Converting a shaftie to a belt drive is no easy feat. Simply
pulley as you would an axle for a wheel. However, in order
to construct the rigid piece he needed. Collier had to
replace the entire engine side cover. Since the cover housed
the alternator, stator and ignition pickups, the new cover
had to be machined with mounting points for the factory
electrics. For this exacting work, Collier turned to Ben Lake
of Eustis, Florida.
When Lake finished, the countershaft was supported on
both sides by OE bearings, making the assembly stronger
than any bek. Also, the new cover uses the stock bolt
locations on the engine and even provides a mounting
stripping off the shaft hardware and slipping on a pulley is
not an option. Numerous clearance and force considerations
point for the clutch slave cylinder. Since the new drive
system was being added to an existing engine, tolerances
need to be addressed. First, the pulley would be
further out from the engine case than the
shaft, exerting side loads onto the counter-
shaft bearings that they weren’t designed
to endure. How do you keep a
long shaft from becoming a
lever? Borrowing from the
get tight in places. The space between the pulley and the
clutch actuator shaft is only 110-thousandths of an inch!
Collier off-handedly says that if the belt breaks, it’ll take
the clutch controls with it.
Although the Vulcan 1500A is a smooth engine, Collier
wanted to make sure his creation wasn’t a paint shaker so,
he used as much of the Kawasaki rubber mounting system
as possible, fabricating brackets to hold the mill in the right
position. In the FXR chassis, the swingarm is attached to the
transmission, and the drive forces are directed forward into
the engine. Since the Vulcan engine didn’t have a pivot
point, a new swingarm pivot needed to be constructed. The
pivot now rides inside a two-inch diameter tube, which...
15707