Norton from Australia

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Personally I've been amazed at stuff you can get built in Oz. They have some very good shops and very good people.
Although these claims seem high I bet it is good work, love to see it on a dyno next to a known good produceing engine.
Anybody remember Shelby American's claims about thier engines? entreprenors tend to get a bit bombastic after all.
 
Typical Aussie do it yerself stuff. Make yer own head, no worries. And while the billys waiting to boil lets make a crankcase too. Seriously there are some very talented home brew engineers here. However, I have to say that Village is on a one man crusade. The feature bike has been around for several years as I recollect. A bit odd that every Norton racer I bump into only mentions Maney performance products?
Comparing the effort, the Full Auto heads have been professionally designed and manufactured by a state of the art engineering company with decades of motor-sport innovation. The cost of that is big. The commercial prospect of breakeven requires long term financial sustainability. Make a head for yourself and not commercialise it? It looks the biz OK, but I'm struggling with the volumetric efficiency of the 2 valve system, the capacity and the bore / stroke being able to pump out +120HP. The anomaly I see is in the bolt up crank. No question it is very well made, but it still relies on through studs and any serious Norton racer will tell you they don't last. Steve Maney stopped making his flywheel with upgraded crank cheeks as they still had the propensity to destruct and he's pushing 90HP. Maney only now supplies a one piece crank. Likewise with the Village crankcases, they don't seem to be well known or commercially available in the wider market. I think the Village products have tremendous potential, but I for one would like to see some independent tests and commercial assurity that they can support customer usage for the long term.

Mick
 
Hi Mick,
Actually, Steve Maney's cranks are still 3 piece bolt up ones, (I got a new one a few days before he went over to see you :) However the complete crank is all new and stronger than the originals

He stopped modifying original cranks using his own flywheel because so many of the cranks that people brought to him were cracked! (I broke 3 in 2 seasons before I bit the bullet and bought a new one!)

Cheers

John
 
Hi all, well Ive been thrown a line so its time to bite. Village bike Norton has been around for sometime. Youve got too admit appart from those head lights, the development is somewhat spectacular, and a credit to someone who manufactures their own head, barrels, cases etc. The claimed HP seems a little far fetched for a two valved naturaly aspirated engine doing 8000 rpm even with the bath tub combustion chamber. Others on this site who race Commandos have tried this style of chamber and found no difference in HP, only the lightening of their wallets to experiment! My Honda VTR 1000 V twin with 4 valve technology overhead cam etc is rated 110 HP at 9000 rpm and with Yoshimura pipe is now some 120 HP. Where is his extra HP coming from?
Six months back I searched Australia for someone to port and fit larger valves to my Commandos head, I came across Village and was impressed with what I read, so I phoned 3 bike shops and 2 machine shops around the area to see what I could learn. Well what a surprise, all had the same opion, "dont go there"! Out landish claims and trips to stand before men wearing white wigs because of faulty workmanship. Mmmm,, time to look else where. Enough said or written!

TinTin, Ive heard sheep are not much fun as youve got to run around the front to kiss ,em. :lol:
 
Hey Foxy, I thought a man of your experience would have known the old tennis racquet trick for sheep!! Use an old one with no strings!! You can slip it over their heads and pull it back, so you can kiss them at the same time! And if you're on top of a cliff, they push back harder too! :mrgreen:
 
Hi guys, sorry been absent from the site for a while. Well, this is all news to me. Sorry, I don't even have a passing acquaintance with the bloke or his bike. Anybody know who or where he is? Funny I've never come across him. And, no my heads have nothing to do with Village.

As for the money, that's a lot of folding. I'd rather spend half that and have one of Matt's Colorado Norton Works bikes. I guess I don't really like the idea of a Norton with that much horsepower. If the guy has done all that he says, then good luck to him. I'll stick to my 40 odd horsepower and be well happy (which as the experts will tell you, is all these things of ours make at the wheel, 42 to 48 bhp). If I want to go faster I'll jump on my Buell. After that, I don't really need to go faster. Interesting though.
 
Yeah good one John, no shortage of good tips on the forum, Im sure theres someone out there who,ll want to borrow your racquet! :mrgreen:
Back to topic, Village bike is based in sunny Queensland, well make that flooded Queensland!! Couldnt help notice the shonky wiring job in his workshop, all those wires should be in conjuit for protection!
 
Foxy,

Well, the Scotts have the advantage. The sheep can hear a zipper from a mile away. (think kilts)

Dave
69S
 
Keith1069 said:
The 127bhp/l claim
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Somewhere I read that Steve Maney was getting 100 hp from a 920 but that's for racing with limited mileage. Mind you he doesn't use titanium rods and the Village cases look even thicker in some places. Village cranks are similar to a German tuner currently building some special performance parts in that they use bolt on balance weights. That HP figure is getting into drag race engine territory with methanol. Wasn't Hogslayer around 150hp per 850 but blown and running on Nitro as well. Certainly nice stuff and testimony to Australian engineering. Wonder if Fullauto had any discussions, like you say two newly tooled Norton heads from Oz, amazing, though FA's are for improved stock use and I assume Villages's are designed to go with their own parts as a package (pistons etc)?
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Hogslayer's motors were nitromethane-fueled by way of a split Offenhauser-Hilborn fuel injection and were naturally aspirated. (No blower)
 
Hogslayer's motors were nitromethane-fueled by way of a split Offenhauser-Hilborn fuel injection and were naturally aspirated. (No blower)
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I should have known that having a few pics of it and seen the video from runs over here at Silverstone...........doh!
 
Considering the BHP they were able to make, thinking they were supecharged is a fairly honest mistake.
 
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