hotshoecustoms:Hotshoe Customs CBXtremeA few years ago as I was completing Al’s NBC 360 air ride cus
hotshoecustoms:Hotshoe Customs CBXtremeA few years ago as I was completing Al’s NBC 360 air ride custom that we came to the next bike he was wanting. He wanted a CBX to power it because of it’s overwhelming visual impact, but he wanted it to be a one of a kind. He liked my designs on other jobs so he let me work this one out a bit. A few of the design cues that he specified was the 300 tire that I had on my turbo-chop ‘Bo as well as the Laser Extreme exhaust that I had installed on several of my customers R1’s. I had used an M109R front suspension to give another famous CBX custom I built for his friend Louie that gave a great big strong front fork and brake. That’s when he reached out to him for one from his collection of super clean CBX’s.To start with, the exposed chunk of tubes under the CBX stock frame / tank combo is pretty gnarly. All gussets, tubes and gaps. The oil cooler is the same, kinda stuck out the on the front of the motor, utilitarian for sure. This brought me to making an 18g steel fuel tank with a 2.25 gallon fuel cell using a Vortex fuel cap and the sides of the tank into a large air foil with a cbr900f oil cooler tucked up into the frame to catch the fresh air and send it back to the center section of the carburetors.I modified the big front end to fit the Honda neck, and got the RC Components wheel installed. To clean up the more visible side of the wheel, I machined off the castings for the brake and rotor from the fork leg and the right side of the hub. This was sent out to Sport Chrome along with a laundry list of parts for plating and polishing. For the handlebars i cut a set of new superbike bars to fit the extra-wide trees and held them on with RSD risers. A bit of sparkle was added to the Koso superbike gauges with the oh-so-f’n trick acrylic reservoir for the brakes with machined caps. There is a matching one finishing off the Pro-Tec rearsets and Brembo brake control pushing a PM four-piston rear caliper on a big RC brake rotor. The rear swing-arm is made from DOM steel and tigged in a functional art shape. It hangs both the massive to match the engine 10.5 inch RC Components wheel and the Platinum four valve Bleed / Feed air ride suspension. This is not an air bag. It is connected to the Honda stressed engine designed frame and engine mounts that I heavily modified to mount the sub-frame, swing-arm, fuel tank, gel battery and air ride controls. It was also pretty tricky making the six into one, into a diffuser, into two, into four (whew) exhaust to fit through the swing-arm during a full 6” swing of the air-ride. Just in front of that is the floating jack-shaft I designed to transfer power from the engine to the big rear wheel and tire combo. these are kept in tune with a spring loaded tensioner I attached to the lower side of the swing-arm.I tore down the engine and pushed out the cylinders with a J&E piston kit, Dyna Ignition, a TIms CBX alternator conversion, oil pan extension and performance clutch upgrades. As I assembled the engine, I criticised each part as carefully as the rest of the bike. Some parts were glass beaded, some powdercoated, some painted, some sent out to chrome plate and some to engrave by Otto Carter. The seats and cowl pad were sent to Badass Seats to be covered in high end leather.After the design was proved and ridden with a vid on the youtubes for Al to see his baby in rolling trim, I tore her apart to the fiddly bits. Each part cleaned and finished. I applied the HOK Kandy Brandywine over silver metallic paint, trimmed in a black hugger stripe with a CBX wayyy deep in the paint to let folks know what we started with. Once I wired all of the new pieces I used a street fighter headlight and some LSL brackets to mount using some hardware that I machined to give it the look we have here.I have to thank Al for the opportunity to build this and the patience to complete it. I think we’ve built a one of a kind motorcycle from a milestone in motorcycling history. -- source link