Thread: home made flame thrower

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Alex, you can't compare Harley's with Ducati's !!! It's like putting a 4 wheel drive truck with a lift kit and big tires on a road course.
Ducati's are way kewl, and way fast, no doubt about it. A friend of mine who owns a bike shop took one in on trade, and was nice enough to let me take it out and test hammer it. But, being the geezer with the high mileaged and often abused bod I have left, a quick test cruise was about as far as I could ride the thing. Old Blue with the stretched frame, raked neck, springer front was definitely the way to cruise down the highway. and the ol pan/shovel motor worked quite well, too. Would I take it to the Isle of Man TT and race it??? No way.

I used to ride very hard and very fast. Getting to geezer status kinda changed that. Reactions are slower, vision is poor, and the "need for speed' has been tempered when on two wheels.

Go fast while you can, Alex. Then enjoy the cruizin later.

Oh yeah, and Matt, lots of us don't buy new Harley's. We choose to build our own. Evo's are decent motors, but I prefer the pan/shovel set up for nostalgia. If I wanna go fast, guess I would start with a twin cam.

Dave; when I said " new ", I meant new to them, not nessesearly new to the road. I prefer the shovle to but I'v seen most custom choppers have the evo's. Indian Larry, uses shovles and pan's I belive, he also uses boat trailer fenders for the rear fender on his bike so, it would explain him doing things the old way. Indian Larry also leaves his oil filters exposed and most of his bikes are kick start and, he also makes a few suicide shift bikes.

I didn't realize that a bike was a hot rod, especialy a rice burning bike that some flamer wants to put throwers on.

I thought this was a hod rod fourm anyway.

CHR is for Hot Rodders, some Hot Rodders have bikes, vlx apologized for ridin a ricer cuz it was what he could afford. We know he's gonna be rich and famous some day and build a real first rate American Iron chop. The flame throwers started out as a "what if" type technical question. Therefore, if you can follow this loop, it relates to Hot Rods. I think.

and I suppose your "ghetto-fabulous" Monte Carlo is better? That's not a hot rod either, and YOU'RE STILL HERE.

Before the flames start, I got a ratty Model A, a '57 f100, a '55f100, a '62 Corvair, a 1994 Volvo 850 (wifes car), a 1984 Mercedes 300D turbodiesel, and a 1985 Honda Magna V45 750cc with Weber carbs!

Dissin' the Japanese bikes is BAD. If you want to do that, I'm sure you could take this whole BS discussion over to the chopper site or to www.discovery.com and see what they say. People have been chopping Hondas since the 70's and I'm sure you will get your ass handed to you by one.

Chop what you got!

The guy asked for some technical help on a mod that's been done to a ton of Hot Rods over the years.

If you have knowledge of this mod, pass it on. If you want to post only to give him grief about what he rides/drives... BACK AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD!

This was a TECH question. Help him out and he may have knowledge that can benefit you one of these days that he'll be willing to pass on. Alienate him now and lose a possibly valuable member of the community.

Wire a coil to the battery and then to a switch and then run a spark plug wire to a hot sparkplug in the pipe.

Wire a coil to the battery and then to a switch and then run a spark plug wire to a hot sparkplug in the pipe, mabey run some propane in the pipe ( if you dont want to play with the carb ), do this by getting a $9.99 propane torch from wal mart, drilling a hole in the pipe and stickin the torch end in the pipe and braze or sodder it in the pipe. A mount must be made for the bottle. When you want to flame, open up your torch valve and hit the switch. This may not be pretty but, it can be covered and made pretty.

Thanks to everybody who gave advice on how to pull this off, and thanks to those with the closed minds for a decent chuckle. Here's the plan:

I am trying this on my stock pipes so I don't screw up the chrome on my expensive V&H pipes. I found some spark plug anti-foulers that I cut down and will weld into the pipes. I also got a pair of small spark plugs meant for a chain saw or weedeater. They are probably just under 2 inches long. They're small and compact and shouldn't be too noticeable on the back side of the pipes. I picked up a cheap external resistor coil and am going to put 12 volts from the battery to the + side, and wire the - side to the wire coming from the spark unit that tells the engine's coils when to fire. Doing this should make the extra coil fire at the same time that the rear cylinder fires. I think I will put the momentary switch between the + side of the coil and the battery, as opposed to between the - side and the spark unit, that way the coil will rarely have power to it. I got some bulk spark plug wire and ends coming from a shop, should be here in a few days. I just need to find an end to fit on the coil and I'm set. I hope to have it done by the end of the week, and I'll post pics if I get it working.

P.S. Does anybody have a source for woven nylon hose to cover wiring with?

I know about the convoluted plastic tubing and have used it many times, but I don't like it much. It's bulky and not as neat and clean as the woven nylon hose. You're right about the convoluted tubing being easier to use, but the woven nylon just looks so much better IMO.

http://www.autoloc.com/products/flame.lasso

I am not sure this is going to work now. I held a torch up to the exhaust last night and it ignited very few bits of gas. You could just see a few red dots in the blue flame every now and then. I think the engine is just too efficient. It sparks on both the compression and exhaust stroke for a more efficient burn and I think that might screw me in the end. I'm going to try to pick up a couple larger jets today though and see if that makes a difference. I think that if the torch won't ignite it then the spark plugs won't either.

OK, I finally got the flames a shooting! I'm only able to get flames about a bit longer than a foot long, and only short bursts of flames when the bike is stationary. Since it's a v-twin and has one exhaust pipe per cylinder there's only exhaust gases coming out of each pipe at certain times. Sucks because I can't keep the flames going when I'm sitting at a light or whatever. When hittin it down the road, though, I can pull the choke out, decel, and hit the button and get continuous flames. I can get some flames probably 2 feet long or so if I also hit the kill switch and blip the throttle a hair. It's almost impossible to catch the short bursts of flame with a camera, especially since the flame comes out of the pipes at different times, but I got a real short movie of me shooting flames in my driveway. I need to get somebody to shoot a short vid of me going down the road shooting flames. Sorry for the poor video quality, but it's the only digital camera I could get ahold of that will also do short movies. Here's the link:

http://vlx.roeiboot.com/movies/flames4.mpg

As anyone will testify, i usually buy american. However, lurking under my carport is an 82 KZ750. Anyone got a wiring harness diagram for this thing? Ive been going through this bike off and on for a little over a year now, and i would like to hear it run once. I would buy a harness for it, but everyone only has the 2-cylinder harness. Anyone able to help me? or, anyone want to buy it?

On a bike, it will be tough to hide. I've got an Otis Truckster, with flames. I used an Kohler twin coil, and a double throw relay to redirect the signal from the points. AC Delco M8 spark plugs have 10mm fine thread, so nuts are easy to find. With a twin lung Onan, and dual exhaust, I can get about 18-24 inches of blue flame out inch chrome tailpipes, without injecting fuel downstream, and make it happen all night long. I have never fouled a plug.
Trust me, it looks cooler than it sounds.