Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Crack that throttle open anywhere launch-control system orders an is quite crisp, but not snatchy - you like an Rl or 'Blade is, that's true: from 2000 rpm upward, and the Feuling rockets forward in a passable engine-speed shutdown, and you have to change gears. This is accom- wouldn't really think those three red however, remember that drag racing plished with only a reasonable degree stacks peeping out from the side of the bike behind your left leg were is just two-wheeled imitation of one of those a different kind of two-wheeled sport, so... top-fuel dragsters that light up the of effort - the clutch and shift action attached to f1atslide carbs, but they drag strip with their tire-smoking are heavy, but acceptable - before are. torque and megawatt power. You find you repeat the whole process all over traffic dutifully observing a 40 mph existing radial-triple under way, he yourself performing involuntary again. Awesome. limit thanks to the presence of a Highway Patrol car is no hardship. can take the time to do some work on This is a completely practical realworld ride. but still a W3. "I'm looking at a couple of other burnouts as the fat rear Avon starts Yet you shouldn't get the idea that spinning, then hooks up and starts lifting the front wheel a little, in spite this is a tire-smoking hooligan-hotrod only capable of being ridden with an And trailing along in a line of Still, it makes you hope that, once Jim Feuling has production of the something the same, only different - of the truck-like wheelbase. Suddenly on/off switch. Paradoxically, after But one which you know you have versions on the same theme," he you're homing in on a car that cranking up the W3 motor and admir- only to work your right wrist to trans- says. "What we have here is a 45- seemed a mile away down the Interstate when you got on the gas - so ing the distinctive, lilting exhaust note form into a two-wheeled rocketship, degree V-twin with another cylinder issuing from the three short-stack capable of running away from Patrol- added on to make a total 90-degree back off, use the small but surprising- exhausts - imagine a busier-sound- man Pat's hemi-headed V-eight - cylinder angle - but you don't need to ly effective brakes to cram off some ing, more high-pitched version of a well, until you come to a turn, and be a genius to figure out starting with speed on a motorcycle scaling 590 90-degree Ducati V-twin motor, if you then he might make up some ground. a 90-degree V-twin motor and plac- pounds dry, and get past it before The Kraft frame is quite stable in a ing a third cylinder between them!" repeating the exercise. Yes! What a can - the Feuling proved surprisingly forgiving and well behaved on any straight line, though the handlebar Now, let's see, Jim - would that be blast - literally. Ventura highway. the desmo W3 with the Bologna-built This is the ultimate point-andsquirt motorcycle - one against which The W3 engine is quite a bit does flap a little in your hands as the front wheel lifts a little under really smoother than a 45-degree Harley V- dedicated acceleration, and the sus- motor, or the crossways Mandellosourced version with shaft drive? But a Hayabusa would be history, a ZX- twin, thanks to its better primary (and pension package is quite good that's all in the future - maybe - and 12 dead meat, both completely inca- enough to permit some spirited attempts at cornering, though with first of all the Feuling Motor Compa- pable of keeping up in a straight line. secondary?) balance, and idles smoothly without any trace of the Phew! The W3 delivers absolutely shake, rattle 'n' roll that, until now, that long wheelbase and the ineVitably outrageous but outstanding W3 road- ferocious performance, pulling all the has been the American Way of restricted ground clearance (not bad ster into production, and into the way to the 5500-rpm revlimfter and motorcycling. Its pickup from low for a cruiser, though), you wouldn't hands of a bunch of customers for still accelerating when the Gill CDI's rpm after stopping at an intersection ever call this a sportbike. Well - not whom size does matter. Jim Feuling: Mechanically Insane Jim Feuling may have acquired an altemative degree in beach culture during his college days growing up m Hawaii, but his pursuit of a marine biology major with a minor in surfing got cut short when he was drafted in the mid- '60s - fortunately, just too early to be sent to Vietnam, Having survived his stint in the military, Jim aborted his interrupted college career in favor of follOWing his heart and going first car then motorcycle racing, both on his own self-tuned equipment. "I've always been mechanically insane," states the 56-year-old Feuling with the rational conviction of someone still suffermg from engineering dementia, "and after growing up with a dad who was a machinist and a mechanic in between being a bike racer, I probably had no choice. But I always liked working on engines as mucli as actually racJng the result, and since being a racer is gambling with the law of diminishing retums, eventually I started my own business in San Diego in 1974, doing race prep as ....ell as R&D for various people in the industry." Feuling Technologies swiftly grew into one of those West Coast automotive R&D specialists which Detroit Jives and dies by, as evidenced by the firm's solid CV featuring prestige names like Ford, Jaguar, General Motors, Mercedes-Benz, Mazda, Aston Martin - and HarleyDavidson. "I figured out early on the key importance of hannonious components in an engine, of making everything relate to each other," says Feuling. "Our expertise is in developing good packages that work well from every standpoint. I won't say we leamed early on how to build a better mousetrap, then sat back to wait for Mickey to come calling - but we got a good reputation for getting the job done, on time and to budget. Detroit likes people who do that." Feuling's work for Oldsmobile helped transform a sleepy aM backwater making cars for a moribund generation of elderly Americans into a performance powerhouse whose modular family of engines was developed with Feuling's help from 1983 onward into an industry benchmark - none more so than the Quad-4, which in Feuling-developed twin-turbo, DOHC, 2-liter, four-cylinder, 16-valve competition gUise, prodUcing 1270 hp, set a new closedcourse world speed record of 291 mph at Texas Speedway in 1987, in th.e hands of local leg. end A,J. Foy!. This led in due course to the Quad-8, forerunner of the Oldsmobile Aurora and in due course the Cadillac Northstar V8 powering GM's prestige range today - but by then Feuling was also working for Ford on their three-valve-per-cylinder range, then for Mercedes on a similar project, with his ideas all protected by the more than 400 worldwide patents which Feuling Technologies holds today . and actively enforces. Feuling underwrites the Armani suit budget of a fleet of patent lawyers making sure his ingenuity continues to be recognized - and rewarded. Okay - but why Harley? "Bikes were my hobby, cars were my business," says Feuling, who just weeded out the majority of his 100-plus collection of motorcycles via an auction last summer, while retaining some jewels like the ex-Cal Rayborn XR750 Harley and the Vincent Black Shadow both sitting in his workshop. "I'd done some bike project stuff for American Honda, but nothing directly for a manufacturer - and then I got a call from Harley's chief engineer Earl Wamer, who I knew from when he had the same job with Corvette and we were in friendly but mortal competition, me being tied in with Olds. Harley was towards the end of their P22 program which resulted in the Twin Cam 88 - but they'd reached a crossroads and had to decide whether to abort it or pursue it. Wamer called me and said, 'Jim - we've got a real problem here and my job's on the line. We've been to Porsche, to Cosworth and a bunch of other companies, and everyone says we shouid tear up the design and start again - but we're $54 million in, and I need help.' So I looked at his problem, told him I could fix it in 90 days and if I didn't come through, I wouidn't charge him a dime. Then we went in and we fixed it - cost 'em $800,000 and change, and in four months we were ready for production. They'd been having problems with thermal management on the Twin Cam 88 motor - overheating, ignition, miles per gallon, you name it. Well, we cured all that and made a few other changes as well - and while we don't get much credit for what we did, that's okay because we expect to be transparent, and that's what we're paid for. But it was an opportunity to work for Harley, which is kind of a high water mark for us, me being a biker at heart." ny's specific intention is to get the CN Okay - but speaking on the record about all this surely won't represent good sales promotion for future Feuling/H-D collaboration. "No - because there won't be any. While I was working on the problems with the Twin Cam (which resulted in both the 88 motor's trademark big cylinder rms, and Feuling-patented exhaust valve and high-velocity exhaust port design, all apparently key factors in curing the overheating problems), I had the idea for the W3, and proposed it to them as an opportunity to expand their range, and take additional advantage of all the dollars and time that had been spent by them on the two-year P22 development program. lt would have needed a total of just 10 new parts to accomplish, so it would have been real cost-effective. They reviewed my proposal, and made an offer which wasn't generous enough to recover my initial investment, so I told them I appreciated their interest but was going to keep going with it in-house - after which all programs they were working on with us following the success of the Twin Cam deal, got canceled, terminated, stopped. End of relationship." So, a couple of years down the line, where does the independent, non-Milwaukee based Feuling W3 project stand? "We're pretty heavy duty on it right now (or should that be Heavy Duty?) trying to get it to production. Tooling's all done, preliminary testing is complete, durability testing is ongoing we have two 150 cubic-inch, 2500cc bikes running on the street right now clocking up serious mileage, and we have a 183-cubic-inch, three-liter version we're evaluating, plus the design is capable of golng to four liters, no problem. We're now involved with certification for street use, which should not be unduly onerous, because the camshafts we're using in it have a shorter duration than the ones in the Twin Cam 88, so we're not anticipating a problem with noise or emissions. But homologation is so costly in terms of time and money, we're not taking anything for granted - though we are taking orders, and have sold some separate engines and chassis packages, as well as a couple of pre-production bikes. The engine costs $16,400 including carburetors and the BritiSh-made digital ignition, the chassis kit is $19,500 comprising engine, ignition, wiring harness, frame and swingarm, and we're marketing the readybuilt bikes for $39,500 on a handmade basis - but if I can get production up to 500 bikes a year instead of batches of 10 to 20 at a time, like right now, I can cut the price by $10,000 just on the basis of economies of scale in making parts. But, hey - we're doing it! The W3 is in the market, and our www.feuling.com Web site shows how serious we are about this." Really, seriously serious? "Look, I remember Junior Johnson [the legendary NASCAR stock-car ace, and former Carolina moonshine runner made good) sitting right there where you are now. eating some chicken soup and telling me the dif· ference between being involved in something, and committing to it. He says to me, 'See this here chicken soup, Jim? I'm eating thjs soup, so I'm involved with it, but this here chicken - he's committed!' So I'm committed to the W3 motorcycle it's part of my life, it's got my name on it, so I don't have a way out, and one way or the other, we're going to bring it to market and make soup out of it." cue I • n e _ S • APRIL 3, 2002 45

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