We faced the grim reality of eight days before we rolled toward the historic Bonneville Salt Flats. Berry Wardlaw flew in from Accurate Engineering to assist with the Nitrous wiring, tuning then flew back out to Dotham, Alabama to take care of biz for a week, before returning to the salt. We hoped for a running Assalt Weapan and some Dyno time while he was here.

At this point our crew was pointed in a lot of directions. Nyla was working on our team shirts and ballcaps for the salt, the motorhome/toy hauler rental, supplies, tools, ramps, tents and chairs. The salt is a desolate, unforgiving surface, and there ain’t no trees to huddle under. The wind kicks up every afternoon and there’s a code, “Leave the salt as you found it.” We needed to have tarps under our work surfaces and a lift this year so we wouldn’t crawl around working on the bike and we’d work on the bike constantly. That was guaranteed.

That wasn’t all. We grappled with printing banners to support our sponsors, hats embroidered, stickers made, paint delivered, pinstripers called and the seat delivered.

Fortunately we were able to eliminate some of the wiring and by Friday evening the bike had fired to life. All systems were up and running. The oil tank worked (I was nervous) and we had oil pressure. The Spyke Charging system worked and we had power. The Big Boar battery struggled but started the Accurate Engineering 120-inch Panhead while Berry Wardlaw spoke of Nitrous gods and the Anola Gay, which was built during WWII a mile from the Salt Flats. He’s a master of history, wars, racing and revels in the masterminds who came before him.

As the Assalt Weapan fired we shifted into the checkin’ and adjustment mode. Every aspect of the bike was inspected and reexamined. The clutch, oil line routing, wires, and shifting. We decided to eliminate the Pingel electric shifter and install a manual shifting system, I had previously prepared for. We made a shifter system and I started to cut the panels for the shift rod, then decided to run the rod on the outside to prevent more damage to aero benefits of the panels.

We dropped the Pingel because of our own insecurities and inexperience with the system. Plus the load on the electrical system was a consideration and the vast quagmire of wiring involved. As it turned out, it was a wise decision. I also didn’t like the position of the solenoid acting as a wind block. Over and over during this entire process I was focused on anything we could accomplish to enhance traveling through the wind.

Earlier in the week Junior of Lifestyle Cycles in Anaheim approved our use of his dyno, then he fell in love, got married and ran off. We couldn’t reach him on Saturday. We tried Bartels’ H-D and the Bartels’ family was out of town. I forgot to try Benett’s Performance, Bonneville contenders, on Signal Hill, but we procured positive word from Junior’s love nest and were able to jam to LifeStyle Cycles and make six passes on their dyno with Sparky’s assistance.

We experienced moving the Assalt Weapan for the first time and it wasn’t easy. With less that 2 inches of ground clearance, the oil tank under the frame touched down way too often and ramp loading was difficult without four crew members, but we did it.

Berry has a dyno at his Alabama headquarters and more experience than I at dyno operations. We sported a 40-tooth rear sprocked and should have made our runs in 3rd gear rather than 4th, but it was damn good to hear her run up through the gears, feel the BDL clutch in action and see her fly through the Baker gears.

The graph on the exhaust stained Dyno Jet Computer read a consistent 115-117 horsepower and between 170 and 215 pounds of torque. Berry specifically built this to be a nitrous/ torque engine with .700 thick Ross piston tops and ring lands . 300 down the piston to handle the nitrous load.

He added two pounds to the flywheels to enhance torque and backed off on the ring pressure to reduce the largest friction element in this engine. Tiny holes in the top of the piston above the rings allowed compression to pressurize the rings during the compression stroke.

Berry studied every aspect of his engine configuration to give us durability and reliability under a Nitrous load. “I could still give this engine another 100 hours of improvements,” Berry said over and over, as if a future threat loomed ahead.

We wrapped up the goods and our dyno runs and headed back to the Bikernet headquarters with our run printouts and list for the next week, the last week before we headed to the great white dyno in Bonneville, Utah. Berry was unhappy with the runs and the skipping tire on the dyno. “We would deflate the tire and pull it down hard against the drum,” Berry said as he explained how he operated his dyno. “Our rear tire was skipping, that’s where the RPM spikes showed up. I would have liked to run this on the dyno all day.”

We did our best within out delicate time frame and pushed onward. I sent Berry a report as progress was accomplished:

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