home made flame thrower

I ride a 2002 Honda VLX. It was definitely not my first choice, but as I always say, chop whatcha got. I removed the spring and it rides rigid, I made a tooled leather seat with springs under it, K&N pod filter on carb, straight pipes, and soon another modification. I'd like to turn my pipes into flame throwers. Never saw it on a bike but I know many hot rodders do it. I've got several questions. First, I don't want to buy a kit, I want to make it all myself. That and I'm a cheap bastard.

To get started, what's the best way to wire these things? I plan on buying a plain jane coil. My bike has dual coils and I have not investigated the electrical system too closely yet, but do know that it has two coils and fires once on compression and once on exhaust stroke. There are magnetic pickups. What I want to know, is there a way to splice into one of the wires ran to an existing coil that will tell the new coil when to fire? I've heard of guys making buzz boxes and stuff, but if there were a way around it that would be much easier and cheaper. If not, what's the best way to make a buzz box? Do you use an existing points plate from a distributor or fab up your own job?

Also, I've heard that some of the kits cut out power to the motor's coil while it fires the coil for the flame thrower. I do not have much experience with this, but I would think you would want to keep the exhaust gases pushing out of the pipes so the flame travels outward. Am I right here? I do not want to have to shut down my engine, throw some flames, and then start it back up. Maybe somebody can explain better how these kits work.

Another thing, I have been told to just weld a nut on my pipes to thread the spark plug into. Isn't the plug going to foul very easily with the electrode very exposed like that? I didn't know if you guys made a small shield in front of it or not.

Does it matter if I use a small spark plug for this? I'm asking because even though this will be on the backside of the pipes, it will still be noticable. I want it to be as compact and neat as possible. I found some plugs for chain saws and weedeaters that are very small but don't know if these would provide enough spark. I do not want to weld a nut to fit these plugs to my pipes and then find out it won't work. There's also not much clearance between my pipes and the frame to work with.

I think that covers my questions so far, maybe you guys can give me a few more pointers. I'd appreciate any help I can get.

I already did the search, and those questions were still unanswered.

Streets:

I thought that the spark had to be intermittent or it could damage the exhaust system? A constant spark would work OK? Lord knows I don't need to be picking shrapnel out of my leg.

As to the rice, yes I ride a Honda. So my bike originated overseas. I guess people don't realize that several of the parts on Harleys come from Japan. I bet you also didn't know that several of the Honda bikes are now assembled in the US. It's funny how people look at my bike and hardcore is the last thing that pops in their mind when they see the Honda logo. I tell you what though, the looks on their faces was priceless when I was still out riding in 10 degree weather this winter and the "hardcore" Harley riders were caging it. I'm sure I put on more miles than most of them also. But yet my bike was made by Honda instead of Harley, so it must be inferior. I'm tired of people putting a damn brand on everything. Chop whatcha got.

I understood the posts in that thread, but had more questions that were not answered there.

I do not want the flame intermittent, but thought that the spark had to be intermittent. I thought that was the whole reason why the kits come with buzz boxes? I read somewhere that if the spark was constant that the flame could travel back up the exhaust and cause problems. Like I mentioned, I have no experience with flame throwers, hence the questions.

Mine is more complicated because it's a competition set-up. The buzz box is of my own design and I use a pre-mix fuel injected into the pipe just upstream of the plugs. You can let the engine trigger the extra coil, but it usually starts missing and fouls the plugs (at least mine did).

Flamethrower update...I used straight gasoline in my flame tank and had some rodder buddies cook weenies on my pipes, hot rod lunch food for sure. They had a funny after-taste, though....

You know, I thought of something sweet. What if I had the flamethrower connected to a remote, with a solenoid to pull the throttle. I could flame' from 30 feet away!!!:3dSMILE:

Madgrinder:

I probably won't throw flames but for maybe 5 seconds at a time or so. How often did you flame for it to foul your plugs? I think that if I do it for short periods of time and not all the time that the plugs should self-clean a bit. I'm going to pick up the stuff I need this week and try it out!

So what's your vote??? Will the ricer: A. Gernade itself, or B. Not work at all, or C. Who cares, it's a ricer??? Just vote silently, not worth starting a poll for this one!!! Sorry man, rice rockets must have their own forum somewheres on the net.

Dave:

Although foreign, my bike is far from rice. There are no TypeR or NOS stickers, or any stickers for that matter, it is tastefully done, and I do not make it out to be fast. It is actually very slow and I'm always the first to admit it. I do not go around reving the motor trying to race people and act like an idiot. Hell I don't even like Jap cars, but when it comes to bikes it's hard to beat Honda's reliability and value. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have a Harley or even Brit bike to chop but do not have the money and won't for some time. I'll invite you to take a look at a few pictures of my bike and have included a link at the end of this post. If you don't like it, that's fine, maybe you'll at least appreciate the work I've put into it. I see cars all the time that I don't like the look or the car/bike they began with but I appreciate the craftsmanship and work put into it. I think that's a big part of chopping and rodding.

http://gallery.roeiboot.com/2002vlx

You said a mouthfull, pal.

I don't want to start a riot, or anything, but "chop what you got" has always been my thing, too.

I type this as I'm taking a break from working on my Corvair. I drive one of the biggest jokes in automotive history.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, it does flip over. I have to turn it right-side-up every morning when I drive it to work":LOL:

Yup, nice Honda.......Sorry man, just hate to see my money going out of the country when there are people looking for work right here at home. Of course, we can no longer call it sending work overseas to be done, to be politically correct we must call it outsourcing !!!!!

Nothing personal, the worksmanship is great. I apologize for using this forum and your thread to make a political statement.

Dave:

No apology necessary, I understand and agree with you. Whenever looking for parts and such, I always try to buy from somebody in town when possible. The owner of a small local shop even told me one day that I could get tires and parts cheaper from Dennis Kirk or JP Cycles. I'd rather pay a little bit more and keep business local when I can. I work for Wal-Mart and hate their corporate bullshit and how they keep buying cheaper and cheaper crap and cutting down American countries to offer products at a lower rate. I disagree with much that they do and try to shop there as little as possible. But, when it came time to buy a bike I needed a reliable one and had to stay around 4 grand. I am young, fixing to start a family, and am trying to stay out of debt as much as possible. 4 grand can't buy much of a new bike unless you go metric, so I did. I ride all over and don't have the money to be fixing broken parts on the side of the road. A little known fact about Honda is that they now have (don't know how long it's been there) a factory in Ohio I believe that builds several models of bikes they sell. Sure they're still Japanese parts but at least they're using American labor to assemble them.

Streets,

Re: Serious machines: It's spelled D-U-C-A-T-I, not Harley.

The truly hard-core don't ride Harleys; they rebuild European or Japanese equipment, modifying them to their personal specs, and ride hard and fast....

Alexi

:toocool:










Ducks are cool

Quote:

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Originally posted by Alexi LeBrun
Streets,

Re: Serious machines: It's spelled D-U-C-A-T-I, not Harley.

The truly hard-core don't ride Harleys; they rebuild European or Japanese equipment, modifying them to their personal specs, and ride hard and fast....

Alexi

---

I, can't say as I agree with you Alexi, The first thing people do to there new Harley is put on a diffrent exzaust system and change a few other parts. European bikes are very diffrent and very respectable for that fact Ex. Moto Guzzi. Jap bikes rarely have anything done to them other than new plastics and a race pipe. Now I'm not compleatly dissagreeing with you because Ducati is a very nice bike but, Harley davidson does have the customozation end of it all, look at the people who make custom choppers and use Harley engines, They normally use the Evoloution or the Panhead engine. I also cannot shoot down Japaniese bikes cause I own two. I own a 1978 Suzuki Ds100 ( Dirt Bike ) and a 1978 Suzuki Ds125 ( Dirt Bike ) but, these are older bikes and only have plastic fenders.

They were cheap, the 100 was $30.00 and my dad paid 300.00 for the 125.

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

http://www.autothisworld.com/largeimages/FLAME2.jpg

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.

Thanks for the reply PackRat. I used a universal 12v coil that I mounted under my springer seat with a chrome cover/bracket. I wired the + to a momentary switch and then to the battery, and the - to the spark unit that triggers the rear coil. When I push the button it reduces the spark for the rear cylinder also so that helps put more gas in the exhaust. I got some plug wire that goes to the plug in the front pipe, and then I spliced into it there and ran it back to the rear pipe. The plugs I used were for a chain saw/weed eater and are only 1 7/8" total length. Pretty simple setup, but it works. I've been running cheap ways to do propane through my head and I may tackle that one day soon. Tough to find places to hide the bottle and valve. I could use a solenoid valve, but they are very expensive and I don't got the bread for that. Thought about kiping some hoses from a gas grill and using one of the valves from it, but it'd be tough to find a place to hide/mount it that would be accessible while riding. Any ideas for valves? I don't know how much pressure some copper tubing with a small ball valve could take?

Less money = more fun, if you are careful not to cheap on the dangerous stuff. I have flamethrowers on my 49 Chevy 1 1/2 ton wrecker, also. I can get about 2 feet of fire out each 4" stack, from a split header 250 6-killer, without adding fuel downstream, and the choke pulled about 1/4 out. Call me a liar, if you want, but just come to OZ and I'll prove it. I used an old distributor, RG58 coax, and some jumpers to crossfire the cap. Run off the belt drive and works great, as long as you take the belt off before heading out of town.
I have been working on adding fuel myself. I was considering NOS fuel solenoids, and acetylene backfire checks, with a jet orifice in the pipe, or cold start soleniods mounted in the pipe itself. I haven't found an insulator for the in-pipe injector, yet. I have turned the pipes cherry several times, and would rather not have a bomb go off a foot from my head.
I just now had a thought. What about direct inject diesel injectors? I'm headed to the diesel shop, to check it out. Catch Y'all later.

I was also considering NOS solenoids, but they are not cheap, like the industrial type solenoid valves. Let me know how the diesel injectors go. I know that there are kits sold to add propane injection for more power on diesel motors, maybe some of those kit manufacturers would have parts to use. My pipes never get hot enough to ignite propane like that I don't think. How is an acetylene check valve constructed?

No go on the diesel injectors. Pressure runs way higher than I expected, and Stroker injectors used 115V DC, also. Yes, 115V.
I saw some used NOS soleniods at the Sunflower Swap Meet, in Wichita, that were reasonable. I didn't think about using them, until later.
I can't remember the actual stucture of the backfire valves. What it does, is protect the hoses and bottles if the torch flame is forced back into the torch head(backfire).
Another thought, which just came to mind, is a fuel shutoff solenoid, from an add-on propane kit, like was used on gasoline engines.
As for your pipes getting hot, hope you don't use your flamethrower like I use mine. Last year at Rod Run, I lit a cigar off my stack. I need to move the plugs closer to the end of the pipe. I had to stop & cool off twice.
Anybody on the board been to the Ord, NE Rod Run flamethrowing contest out at the K-Line?

Would you really need check valves with the propane? Engineers correct me if I'm wrong, but won't it only ignite in the presence of oxygen? I need to go check out my gas grill and see how it's set up. I would think if you had maybe a 1/16" jet for the propane to shoot out of and kept it flowing until AFTER you shut off the spark, that it would not backfire into your propane lines. With a small jet you wouldn't be letting oxygen into the line. I'd like to see how the people who have done propane injection have their's set up.

this is the link you want for flame thrower advice....
http://www.clubhotrod.com/showthread...t=flamethrower
i have posted pics of our setups for gas or propane fuelled systems...
you do need to insulate the hose feeding the fuel supply.. either by using a long length of pipe to help dissipate the heat or by using decent heat resistant hoses (V expensive)...by using the solenoid type shutoff valves you will not have to rig up a set of injectors or what have you... the fuel will 'inject' and vaporize off the fuel pump pressure as it 'backs up against a small aperture in the tube inserted into the tailpipe.. i use 1mm bore stainless tube peened down to .5mm creates good pressure in the fuel sys and therefore mists the fuel...instead of dribbling gas into the exhaust... petroleum mist = easier to ignite.. 12v fuel shutoff valves like those are not expensive, and they ar also useable when you upgrade to propane as they are gas tight too....