Models: Camille Dysart and Haley Craig
With roughly 1,500 hours of engraving over nine months, a crazy candy baby blue and silver leaf paintjob that extends all the way to the frame and cases, and a 23-inch (engraved) billet front wheel, you'd be excused for thinking this was a pure show bike with no practical application whatsoever. And you'd be half right. But the heart and soul of Paul Binford's latest creation is the engine and driveline combo.
The MexiSpanish phrase "Que Paso?" roughly translates to English as: "What's up?" "What's going on?" or "What the hell?" and it's an apt moniker for this bike, which may masquerade as a custom touring bike, but in reality is a future drag racer just doing time on the show circuit until 2011 when it starts its quarter-mile career. So...what the hell, Paul?
"We wanted to bring back the Road King. It's been three or four years since we've done one. We've done all the big [sound] systems and TVs on 'Glides; we wanted to lighten up this build with no extras. I've wanted to do a baby blue bike for a minute, and the same with the engraving, we'd been talking about bringing that back too. We are trying to get in the nine-second bracket. With 212 lb-ft of torque and 202 hp [at the rear wheel], bring it on!"
So where other builders might have kept the three concepts discrete and built a few bikes, Binford tossed all his eggs in one big blue basket. And so far it's working for him, with a few wins on the show circuit, including Willie G's Best in Show at Harley-Davidson's Ride-In Bike Show in Sturgis this past summer.
So, more about the motor (in Binford's own words):
"We got with all the builders, [of go-fast stuff] S&S, Axtell, Wolfgang Grasser, Horsepower Inc., and built the motor to break the 200 lb-ft mark on just gas alone. We're running VP112 [race gas] in it, but it could have been an alcohol motor. [We got] 200-plus lb-ft and 200-plus horsepower with 14:1 compression, 11 pounds taken out of the flywheels [they were "pork chopped" and knife-cut], ceramic-coated lower-end, external oil lines, a one-off 63mm Horsepower Inc. throttle body, a Bob Woods cam, everything you could possibly do to build horsepower [and still be naturally aspirated], we did it. It's the biggest, nastiest thing you could put in a Harley case." We're guessing the original engine and tranny cases helped to score points at the H-D Show as well, which tends to favor Harleys that are actually Harleys.
"[It's] the most expensive motor we've [ever] done. [There is] something near $18k just in the motor," says Paul.
And how is that quest for a nine-second quarter mile?
"We haven't done anything with it yet. We're going to show it a few more times before we go race it and break something on it. Something's going to break, we just don't know what it is. When the motor fires up, it literally looks like it's going to self-destruct. We don't know if it's going to be the swingarm, the chain, the primary. Bert Baker built us a race-ready five-speed [with an oversized] main shaft. It's supposed to be a bulletproof transmission. We'll see what it does with 200 lb-ft knockin' on its door."
The from-scratch motor actually made it easier to do all the very detailed powdercoat since it had to be blown apart anyhow. The flake in the in-house sprayed paint contains seven different colors, so bright that it makes you look right past the righteous amounts of hand-laid silver leaf. Jason at Chrome Fusion did all of the long months of engraving, featuring some of Binford's recurring motifs: poker chips, brass knuckles, and dollar signs.
"The bling, it's just what it is," explains Paul.
In other words, chattel: to be sacrificed on the altar of the Gods of Speed. Take a good hard look at this bike either on these pages or at the West Coast bike show of your choice, because come next year, it will be the world's blingiest race bike.