Sheeking Motorcycle Blogs

Didn't get to make it to EICMA in Milan this year, so headed up to Motorcycle Live at the NEC to check out the latest bikes.

Particular interest was paid to the Ducati 1199 Panigale and MV Agusta F3 with lots of close up shots acquired. The F3 is truly stunning, so much design detail on every single component.

 Also had a chance to check out up close the Yamaha M1 and have a feel of the wafer thin carbon fiber bodywork.

 All those hours modeling parts and creating drawings in CAD and finally the real parts arrive!

We had a fairly big delivery of lasercut pieces arrive from Optima Stainless at the end of last week. This consisted of frame gussets, subframes, battery box, fuel tank pieces and some templates and jigs, which is handy, as we were waiting on these to make progress.

 

The few pieces shown include the end piece of the rear subframe (flat pack form of the CAD model shown in a previous post) at the top, the entirety of the front aluminium subframe above, with instrument panel support and headlight ballast pack in place and the new battery box below (I had to bend something!).

There will be more photos coming shortly when the parts get bent into shape.

Here are the very first photos of the engine and drivetrain that will be powering the Angelic Bulldog motorcycle streamliner. With the finishing touches being performed by Dan Dole at the Footman James Classic Bike Show and arrival of the freshly machined bellhousing and rear engine covers, the specially made Elite gearbox was attached for the very first time.

So here it is, the offset square 8 configuration, originally based on two Honda Blackbird engines, feature counter-rotating crankshafts which link up to Elite gearbox via a specially made shaft traveling through the heart of the engine. All this is mounted onto a special baseplate to which will sit within the chassis. Its great to see at this stage, having been on the drawing board for over 18 months. The final assembly is huge and mightily impressive!

Theres some more photos below, and for any more info on the details of the engine, check out www.angelicbulldog.org.uk

 The rear light unit arrived a few days back and we wanted to see how the final thing was going to look, so spent some time machining the aluminum housings from the CAD data and were so excited, we just had to put it up here!

 The rear light is very similar in styling and also made in two halves which screw together, locking the LED light unit in place. This bolts directly in the rear subframe, sitting within the top of the tail piece so is a real feature of the back end.

Looking forward to the day that we can light them up on the bike!

Now wheres my electrical engineer . . .

This is the headlight unit that we are proposing to use on the bike which arrived some time ago from the USA. The projector unit is a bi-xenon Morimoto Mini D2S along with a solenoid input and ballast pack. This will all be housed in a machined aluminium casing which will fit onto our front subframe.

In addition to this, we plan to have some daylight running lights either side on a specially machined aluminium feature that sits in the air inlet opening. It looks good in CAD, but I'm not going to show you all that yet!