lcrken
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- Mar 15, 2009
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jimbo said:Any news on the ole V4 project?
Not from me. I haven't talked to Greg for some years now. I did run across a couple more pictures, shown here
Ken
jimbo said:Any news on the ole V4 project?
Matt Spencer said:A cross between a VF & Hogslayer , unless its between A Siver Hawk or a Porcipine , preferable to a Porsche.
oops , one of these , anyway .
https://motors-bay.com/ajs/42-ajs-v4-supercharger.html :wink:
the watercooled one expired in a post war supercharger ban .
worntorn said:It's not Dan Smith. He just finished building a Replica of the shaft drive Velocette Roarer complete with basement built Supercharger.
He's busy working out the bugs of that one right now. I know he ran it at Seattle International Raceway couple of weeks ago, apparently the SC was making 7 lbs of thrust and the bike is going to be very quick once fettled.
One minor probem, the gear change went 1,2,4,3 :mrgreen: . This was a camplate problem now fixed.
Imagine, the Velo Roarer, the AJS V4 and a Vincent Series A twin all functioning and all built on fairly basic elderly machine tools in a tiny basement workshop.
I know what I wanna be when I grow up!
Glen
jimbo said:still looking for this V4 Norton bike build or info :mrgreen:
acotrel said:If the V4 Norton has a centre bearing on the crank - how is it done ? I've often though of mounting a bearing on a 6 mm thick hi-strength steel plate between the machined crankcase halves and using similar to an XS2 Yamaha crank.
Thanks for sharing those memories. I'd love to have been there to see your Nort's trashing the opposition.I visited George in the hospital. He had a V4 crankcase there There was also a cylinder block with perfect machined looking fins. Not the slightest casting imperfection or flaw. After HPI closed, He was doing business in antiques from home. He had a 50s Chrysler Hemi sedan, pre "300". He still had a mass quantity of parts there. I remember getting a first gear out of a big bucket of them on a couple occasions when I sheared off a tooth street racing. He also loaned me a socket to remove the inner cover where my cheap socket was too thick walled to fit on it.
I still have the '73 MKII my brother bought from him in the late 70s from his Garden Grove Blvd shop. It has an HPI #3 cam, which is a poor replacement for the HPI #7 it had in the day, which snapped while I was commuting. He told me the #3 is like a SSSS cam but with ramps easier on the valve gear. It has his 34 Mikunis, and did have a Joe Alphabet pipe. I finally removed that for looks, sound, and front fender clearance under braking on bumpy surfaces. George liked those pipes as I recall. My brother and I had a blast street drag racing with our HPI Commandos in the day. The stop lights were close enough together that the top end power of GS1000s KZs and XS 11s didn't come into play, but their weight did. We didn't even consider Honda 750 fours until the '16 valve F was introduced. George was really cool to us. Free parts, advice, loaning out of tools, letting me hang out at the shop, explaining how Fuel cams needed to be different than Nitrous cams, and what happened when he put Nitrous on a fuel Norton. He was also building 750cc four cylinder 1 and 2 cam Honda motors for come class of midget racers.
George built the Kawasaki that Alphabet Headers raced for advertising. I remember the adds, but I don't remember if it was a drag race or a Bonneville / El Mirage record. As to why he built it, I'm not sure, but I think it might have been just because he could.