Notes from a "New Builder"

There are many people to share my gratitude with when attempting such a project as this and especially if you are a "rookie" in the industry.

At 50 years old, it's probably hard to see how a guy can be called a rookie at anything since the term normally implies youth and / or inexperience. In this case I'll accept either. Truth of the matter is, my life up until this point has been taking care of business.....the family business which involved a hectic schedule and many hours on the road.

Although the mind was continually on cycle grips and levers - as well as my new shop, MoonShine Steel, my hands were wrapped around the mahogany steering wheel of the Peterbilt that chauffeured me around the country. Motorcycles are not strangers to me.....I've been on (or under them) all my life (pun intended)...it's just that riding and "bolt-on" customs were all I had time for. When the bug bit, it bit hard.

Making the first cut at 50 may seem a little late in life, but it has served as the perfect thing to keep life exciting and fresh. This guy is glad to have the opportunity to take steps down a new road.

It has amazed me the doors that are open to new people coming into the field of custom bike building. I found myself surprised to call a vendor's shop (Magna Charger) and actually be speaking to the owner on the phone. I imagined "almost celebrity" status would have them hopping around with no spare time to handle a phone call, much less expound on questions asked by a complete stranger in the hills of Kentucky. There is a reason why the entire industry is screaming with excitement and I believe it is the willingness and availability of those people leading the way with products and services like MagnaCharger. I am anxious to fulfill further dreams of owning and operating my small shop and building the customs that appeal to me. After all, that's what "custom" means...made to personal order. Anything else is not yours.

The bike featured here is an '01 Yamaha Road Star XV1600 - Midnight Star edition. I purchased it new and added many custom accessories (bags, windshield, etc) to the bike before deciding to go the direction of total all-out custom and slicing it up. While I enjoy the industry, I have no desire to "fit in" anywhere. Well, actually we all do but not in this respect. I've followed the motto of "Different and Independent" - that's my life with the day job, and in general it's the way I rather roll. Constant pressure to ride a certain brand or type bike has never swayed my belief that you should ride what you like. I personally love these Road Stars having owned 6 of them (still have 3) as well as the Tour Deluxe when my wife wants to go along. No, I don't work for Yamaha but I have to admit that it would be nice of Yamaha USA to pass along the offer of a corner office in Southern California just to sing the praises of riding the Stars. Unfortunately to date, they've not offered any lucrative multi-million dollar contract.

This customized Yamaha Road Star is a very special bike to me. It's a pleasure to ride and it's definitely a head-turner in a world full of fat-tired bikes. Even more special because it's mine, built for me, by me. Another thing making it special to me is that it's the very bike that earned me the opportunity to participate in the first-ever nationally-televised series dedicated to owners and fans of metric bikes. This new 13 episode series is coming in the fall of 2006 and the premise is this in a nutshell.....5 major metric manufacturers give out randomly drawn cruiser and sport bikes to 24 competitors in 3 classes. Four rookies, ten cruiser (established) shops and ten sport bike builders - of which all have been chosen from thousands of entries across the country. We've got 120 days to cut, hammer, weld, bend and shape the completely stock motorcycles into the most radical metric custom ever seen to date, all the time adhering to the rules and regulations provided by the producers of the show. There's a lot of prize money at stake and many of the top names are looking at the potential of Metric bikes for future customers. You're invited to visit www.metrictv.com for additional information on this series.

I'm proud to announce that I was selected as one of the builders in the "rookie" category. Rookie or not...I'm shooting for the moon. In the meantime, you can shoot on over to www.MoonShineSteel.com for more information about us on a personal level. This truly is reality television and I'm looking forward to being a part of it. I've already met the great people involved in this show as the first episode was filmed at Biketoberfest in Daytona 2005. It quickly developed into a great group - riders, producers, hosts and builders alike. I'm honored to be in their company. I look forward to the interaction from viewers and the business industry and I send out a special "Thanks" for checking us out. Thanks again, MagnaCharger Superchargers...you helped in a big way to open doors for a "regular Joe" like me. More power to ya!

THE FRAME WORK: The heavily-modified stock frame features 6 additional inches in the backbone and 5 extra inches in the single down-tube. This particular Yamaha model comes from the factory with 2 down-tubes and I opted to change that to a larger 1 ¾”diameter, cleaner single tube. The seat area was a major concern as well on this model since the stock frame is not exactly symmetrical in the seat area. We had to pay close attention to the frame to achieve the desired look. I wanted the seat to sit on top of the frame rails and not overlap them, contributing to the overall lean look of the bike. My preference was also to leave the underseat area open rather than use side covers - enabling me to show off the one-of-a-kind custom “flat-top”oil tank top cover.

A battery box was welded into position on the underside of the steel seatpan to house an Odyssey PC545 gel cell battery which lies in a semi-horizontal position. A pair of Baron Custom Accessories steel braided oil lines complete the oil tank cover.

THE FRONT END: The frame mods required a new fork tube length of 8” over stock. In my attempt to stay with as much “Yamaha” as possible on this build, I chose to use 43mm diameter fork tubes, which is the same diameter used on all stock Road Stars since their intro in 1999. The stock Yamaha lowers were utilized as well. I discovered the mounting lugs for the front brake calipers were exactly the same on the YZF750 sport bikes (1994 through 1997 models, at least) and these bikes originally used strong dual 6 piston calipers made by Sumitomo. After locating a few pairs of these calipers, I broke them apart, sent them off for chrome and installed new seals. These made for awesome braking to match the great performance of the blown 98 cubic inch power plant. An additional “right side” 6 piston caliper was used for the rear application, resting on a custom bracket which utilizes the upper arm of the swingarm as a support point. To finish out the front end, it was my desire to stay with the beefy look.

THE SHEET METAL: The stock tank was used because, again, I wanted to build this custom to be readily recognized as what it was…one beautiful Road Star. I definitely didn't want it to be mistaken for anything else. The tear drop dash and gauges helped in this effort and they were retained along with all the original Yamaha electronics…with the exception of the turn signals. The tank had to be stretched to accommodate the additional 6” backbone length and this was accomplished with steel. There is no fiberglass work on this bike anywhere…all steel. A Pingel high flow fuel valve was added to the underside of the tank to direct the fuel to the dual chrome Edelbrock carburetors. The front fender is a 12 gauge heavy steel 5.5” wide trimmed extremely low in the rear and contours the RC Components “Wizard” style wheel perfectly. The rear fender started out as a Fat Katz “Pecos” blank and was massaged and trimmed to the present tire-hugging form. I prefer the fender to hug the tire as close as possible and I'm pleased with the results.

THE POWER: Power is supplied by a stock Yamaha Road Star 98 cubic inch air-cooled, pushrod-actuated, carbureted 48 degree V-twin supplied in black powder coat finish, which by the way - is a factory finish. A MagnaCharger supercharger was re-geared to obtain higher boost levels than the stock 5 - 7 pounds. MagnaCharger revealed to me this particular blower had been re-geared for a 113 cubic inch engine and that claims of 15 pounds of boost, while not likely, might be possible. My concerns for a reliable but powerful engine caused me to delve deeper into the mechanics of supercharging vs. naturally-aspirated engines. After a lot of research, I decided to install a “Hobbs-type” pressure switch in an aluminum manifold I had purchased from another online acquaintance that lived in Australia. I drilled the manifold and mounted the pressure switch which I had calibrated to open at 8 pounds of boost which in turn would trigger the retard feature of the DYNA 3000 ignition I was going to install when doing the final tuning.

I added DYNA coils on a custom left side coil mount and Taylor/Sumax 8.8 plug wires. A Yamaha Road Star Warrior starter motor was installed because I anticipated hard start issues due to the fact the blower is driven off the cam gear which meant I would lose the decompression feature provided with the stock engine. Combining the the Odyssey PC545 gel battery with the Warrior starter motor (fed by new heavy 4 gauge tinned copper cable), the bike starts effortlessly. I personally re-worked the entire wiring harness, shortening some while stretching others, enabling me to hide all wiring. When looking at the spaghetti disaster, my wife would look at me with a raised eyebrow and dubiously ask if I really knew what I was doing. I'll admit to some internal doubts, and was thrilled when the bike fired to life on the first revolution.

I added a lower-geared 31 tooth front drive pulley with a 20mm offset to allow for belt/tire clearance. A Dayco Panther 1 ½” drive belt was chosen to wrap around the RC Components 70 tooth pulley. A Baron’s Nude Pulley set was used to finish the look along with a Baron’s flame-engraved pulley cover.

THE SUSPENSION: Many times during this project, I watched as my peers would toss the air-ride option out and “settle” for something else because, in their words, “you can’t get the desired seat/fender look with an air-ride”. I mentioned earlier that it's not important to me to be in the middle of the pack, so in this case, the air-ride was a necessity and I stuck with the initial thought of using an air-ride to muffle what gets fed to a seat with minimal padding.

The seat took a lot more effort than I'd originally expected. It took 5 different upholsterers to cover the steel seat pan until I was satisfied. The original seat pan was lacking "something" and one day my friend held an arched piece of material in place at the rear of the seat and it clicked. The design was complete, and after we hammered out the addition to the seatpan and welded it on, it was sent to the upholstery shop one last time.

More on the air suspension...... The air ride is a Tricky Air & Billet unit made for the Road Star, utilizing a small 12 volt air compressor which I mounted in front of the swingarm along with the relay that accomplishes the “dump” or slam feature. I replaced the turn signal thumb-actuator on the handlebars with the air ride selector switch for suspension changes. The suspension was dialed in at a low 3” ride height with Broward Motor Sports/BMS Choppers adjustable trailing arms. This bike can be ridden at the slammed “rigid” height as well as under air suspension due to the adjustable leveling arms. This enabled me to dial the suspension in while allowing enough clearance for belt drive clearances against the rear fender. If an air-related problem occurs, the bike can still be ridden. Securing and shielding the air lines as well as the electrical wires are the keys to a trouble-free air ride install.

ADDITIONAL : Wheels are RC Components Wizard style forged chrome. Front is a 3.5” x 21” with dual chrome matching rotors. The rear is a 8.5” x 18” with matching rotor and drive pulley. Metzeler tires are used on both ends.

Forward controls are Legends “Bigfoot” model mounted on a custom adapter to utilize “Harley-type” controls on a Road Star platform.


Chrome plating is done by Brown’s Plating, Paducah, KY
Polishing done in-house.
Frame work and metal art by UNKL Al’s Custom Emporium Bullhead City, AZ
Paint by Larry “BOWA” Pastore.
Custom shift rod by Cal Custom Cruisers in California
Custom matched speedo face by Randy White of Alien Faces in Texas

Building this bike has been a labor of love - something I'm proud of, and proud to ride. Nothing beats the satisfaction of knowing you did it, and that it was done "right".  You'll be seeing more of me in the Metric Revolution series, and I encourage you all to follow the builders as we machine works of art from the stock Metric components.

You can contact this innovative builder at