Harley-Davidson 'Kings of Custom' 21 Pics

Over the past month, 29 Harley-Davidson authorised dealers have put their wealth of customisation talent – and the vast resources of Harley-Davidson’s genuine accessories catalogue – to good use, and built their own custom take on the Sportster Forty-Eight, each competing for the title ‘Kings of Custom’?

From 29 bikes there can only be one winner – and you have the power to help pick the champion. A small group of industry judges will also score the bikes, and the results of both votes will be combined to choose the ultimate winner.

Every one of the 29 Dark Custom Forty-Eight dealer bikes can be viewed via the Harley-Davidson UK Facebook page, with images and detailed information about each custom build, the builders and the corresponding dealership. Check them out now, and register your vote – it couldn’t be easier. The closing date for votes is March 1.

Harley-Davidson UK will also be showing their entire range at the Carole Nash MCN London Motorcycle Show this weekend.

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The 2015 Norton Dominator

The legendary Norton Dominator name is set to return as Norton announce they are already taking orders for a new, road-legal version of their Domiracer.

These images direct from the Norton design department are the first chance to see the new bike and what it will look like. At the moment there isn’t a real bike fully built but these are official Norton drawings of how the Dominator will look when it goes into production early in 2015.

The new Norton Dominator has been inspired by the huge success of the £25,000 Domiracer which was limited to just 50 bikes and sold out in less than a week; secondhand examples are now changing hands for up to £40,000.

The demand for the hardcore, track-only Domiracer has shown Norton there is a huge demand for such a bike and nearly 40 of the 50 bikes sold have been registered as road bikes using Single Vehicle Approval (SVA) legislation.

The new Dominator is a toned-down version of that bike; keeps much of the basic Domiracer engineering but this will be a fully type-approved and road-legal bike that meets strict Euro3 emissions and noise regulations.

Norton has already opened the order books for some of those who were desperate to get hold of a Domiracer in 2013 but missed out on the 50 bikes built. The order books are open but Norton doesn’t even yet know exactly when production will begin but it’s estimated it will be late February 2015.

Garner told MCN: “The Domiracer has been so successful for us we had to do this. The demand for the Domiracer has been unbelieveable and even though we always said there were only ever going to be 50 of them we still get people phoning every week asking if someone had dropped off the list.

“We have seen a few selling on the used market for more than £40,000!

“What we are thinking is that there will be a run of 50 Dominator SS bikes to start with before it then turns to building standard bikes which will be named Dominator. Some of those who missed out on the Domiracer have heard about this bike and have already been trying to give us cash deposits. At the moment we are telling them to hang onto their money until we get more of a clear idea of when production will start.”

The new Dominator has some key changes over the Domiracer it is based on; most as a result of the reduced price of £19,999 which has demanded some of the most expensive elements of the Domiracer have been changed. Norton wants to make sure owners of the original 50 bikes are clear the bikes they bought are still special and aren’t going to be followed by a whole load of cheaper but identical bikes built for the road.

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Honda’s supercharged NC750

It’s easy to see Kawasaki’s supercharged H2 as little more than a toy for the wealthy, but the supercharged technology it sports could be a taste of the future for far more mundane machines.

Looking at the layout shown in Honda’s patent drawings based around the NC750 parallel twin, it seems likely that supercharging has been in the firm’s plan ever since the NC750 was first mooted.

The near-horizontal cylinders, which allow for a large luggage space under the dummy fuel tank on the normal NC750S and NC750X, mean there’s plenty of room to sit a crankshaft-driven supercharger and all its related pipe work on top of the engine. While that eliminates the storage space, it means the bike isn’t compromised elsewhere.

Importantly, there’s even space for a large intercooler, which Kawasaki’s H2 lacks. Intercoolers are useful on any forced-induction engine because the act of compressing the intake air also creates a lot of heat. Hot intake air is less dense than cold air, harming performance. With an intercooler, boost can safely be increased.

On the Honda designs, which were drawn up before the Kawasaki H2 appeared, the supercharger is mounted in a similar position to the Kawasaki’s, just behind the cylinders. It takes air from an airbox between the rider’s legs, compresses it and feeds it forwards into an air-to-air intercooler under the front of the dummy fuel tank.

As on the normal NC750, the real fuel tank is under the seat. The intercooler is effectively a radiator, but instead of water it’s the intake air that runs through it. Cold air, coming in through an intake on the front of the bike, runs over the intercooler’s fins, drawing heat away.

After it’s been cooled, the compressed intake air is rushed into a plenum chamber, which is a pressurised storage tank that removes pressure waves and surges from the air and means there’s always a supply of compressed air ready when the throttle is opened.

The plenum chamber has two outlets: the main one feeds into the engine’s throttle body, where fuel is added before it reaches the cylinders, while a second outlet is fitted with an electronically-controlled bypass valve so if the pressure in the chamber gets too high, the engine management system can release some air from the system. Cleverly, the released air goes back into the supercharger rather than simply being vented.

Just how much performance the supercharger will add is going to be largely down to the way it’s set up. However, it’s easy to imagine that it could double the stock NC750’s power, making it a 100bhp machine that would still retain most of the normally-aspirated version’s astonishing fuel economy and low emissions.

Given that the first patents relating to Kawasaki’s H2 appeared nearly four years ago, we could still face quite a wait before seeing the fruits of Honda’s labours in showrooms.

The real reason for supercharging

While supercharged or turbocharged engines are inherently glamorous thanks to their big power outputs, there are two far more sensible reasons for their increasing popularity: emissions, and economy.

Kawasaki’s H2 demonstrates some of the more subtle advantages of supercharging. Some have questioned the road version’s seemingly ‘low’ power because its claimed output is identical to the normal ZX-10R, but newly-released American emissions documents for the bike reveal it scores massively well when it comes to cleanliness.

The H2’s hydrocarbon emissions are down from the ZX-10R’s 0.3g/km to 0.2g/km – an impressive 33% improvement – while the carbon monoxide level drops from 3g/km to just 1g/km. Those are serious improvements for an engine that loses no power and which also benefits from a hefty boost in torque.

While both surpass current emissions requirements, it’s also clear which one will be better placed to fend off future restrictions. The implication of the H2’s lower CO and HC emissions are that it will also be more fuel efficient, at least under part-throttle conditions as in the emissions test (and, most of the time, the real world).

The H2 may still be a rich man’s toy, but its emissions point very clearly to where the next-generation of everyday bikes are likely to be headed.

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