Ed – The inspiration for this project came surprisingly from a Bloomingdales catalog with a vintage World War 2 motorcycle on the cover. Something about the look really appealed to me. After doing some research on the military motorcycles from that era & realistically evaluating my riding environment, I decided I wanted a modern interpretation of a wwii military motorcycle with a more modern engine & modern disc brakes.
I wanted the bike to be a combination of different elements of the various motorcycles from that era. The sprung seat of an Indian 741, and a Harley UA or WLA style springer fork. I chose the XS650 as a base, partially because it was cheap & partially because I liked the more symmetrical look of the engine. After a long search, I settled on the guys at CycleServiceSales to build this project for me. Bill has a lot of experience with very old school motorcycles, and I really needed someone that was familiar with the motorcycles of that era to pull this project off.
We ordered a high ratio gear set as well as had the MikesXS HP billet camshaft & crank rephased to 270 degrees, by Heiden Tuning in the Netherlands. The port work was done by Gary @ Hoos Racing using 2mm oversize inconel Alloy valves I purchased on ebay. We also used the MikesXS 750 big bore kit & myriad of other parts from MikesXS. Various engine parts both internal & external were sent to Performance Coatings for ceramic coating.
The bike is almost finished now, and we need to add the hydraulic brakes as well as ceramic coat the rest of the engine as well as the header pipes. I can send more photos after it’s complete.
