Putting money down again got a zero engineering knucklehead.

Bask in my alleged cost saving measure. that is the lie I am telling myself.
 

I have been hoarding oem parts to build a late knucklehead. After figuring out I was likely looking at another 30k to build it right, but not era correct, I sold the cases and parts I had in the garage for a tidy sum. 
 

Iconic motorcycles is right up the way from me and this popped up on their instagram feed two days ago. Quick couple text messages with Abhi the owner there and some waiting for an approval from the seller and I and before it was even posted on the site officially this is now mine. 
 

the good is that it's a full zero engineering build, it's got the right transmission and modern springer and I get the knuckle. The bad is the knuckle is a s&s not a factory motor. But close enough for somebody who races a replica Porsche. Also I after kicking my race shovel and the flatheads a stocking knuckle should be easy. 

Very cool. I imagine that's a little loud. You gotta post up a vid for our entertainment.

TBH, the fan in the background kinda threw me off for a while.

Does it have an electric foot or do you get to use the bicycle pedal there? When I worked in a M/C shop decades ago, starting bikes like these was not something I looked forward to, being a not impressive physical specimen.

Electric start and kicker. it should have compression release as well based on what I have seen online. 
 

I love my shovel and it's my go to chopper but my god does kicking a high compression 95ci motor stuck. I actually just got the starter installed on that bike and all wired up but without compression releases the battery is to weak to turn it over properly and I am going to burn it out. 

Super cool. Congrats on the purchase; looks like fun! 

If you aren't familiar with Harleys or the place you got it from, the thread title is pretty baffling. 

Yeah, I know what most of the words mean but don't really understand the sentences. 

Not familiar with his area, or the new breed of shops  (Jim Mclure, Wes Bryant, and Larry Spiderman McBride were in in my town, in my early days)

But the only part that lost me was the zero engineering build. Should those be capitalized? As in a shop? Or is it a discription I am unfamiliar with? 
 

I looked up Zero Engineering. They are a Chinese company building aftermarket HD engines in chopper (bobber) frames. 
Looks like modern folks that replicate that style (in them olden days, we called it a "gooseneck section") now refer to it as a Zero Style, or zero engineering (without the caps)

that big front tire look...

Tom Suddard said:

Yeah, I know what most of the words mean but don't really understand the sentences. 

I'm glad I'm not the only one :) The closest I get to Harleys is having a bicycle, so the terminology of the subculture is unknown. It's fun to try to decipher it, though.

I wasn't sure what a racing shovel was, so I asked Dall-e to draw one for me. Not sure that helped...

Tom Suddard said:

Yeah, I know what most of the words mean but don't really understand the sentences. 

I too enjoy motorcycles, however am not versed in HD. 

This seems like a fun time and looks rad.

Super rad, that's a good looking bike.

Man I was stoned when I typed that title out last night more data to come soon.

I also may own another one of these things from the same seller depending on pricing. That one will get shipped now that I have seen them both in the flash as it is. it would have cost me 2x what I paid for the bike in just parts and paint not counting fabrication and registration. The attention to detail is so much better then anything I have built for myself. 

8 hours in the truck and it's in the garage. I need sleep LA traffic is no joke. I averaged 17m miles per hour for three hours straight with a trailer. 
 

03Panther said:

I looked up Zero Engineering. They are a Chinese company building aftermarket HD engines in chopper (bobber) frames. 
Looks like modern folks that replicate that style (in them olden days, we called it a "gooseneck section") now refer to it as a Zero Style, or zero engineering (without the caps)

God we need multi quote.
 

Zero engineering was started by Shinya Kimura who is very much Japanese and not Chinese. They got their start making some of the highest quality springers you could buy. The zero style of chopper is named after the name of the company once they got a bit famous. The original restoration shop name was chabbot (definitely spelling that wrong) which can be translated to "back to basics."
 

Later the shop moved to Las Vegas and it's still around making parts and around 15-24 bike a year. 
 

I have only seen O.G. Zeros before at chopper shows. Fantastically built and a lot of the owners put miles on the bikes. So it was a good fit for me. Expensive bike for the fact that it's running aftermarket cases and well everything. But the quality is top notch and to go to a shop like exile today something this quality would be in the high 70s price wise. 

In reply to wearymicrobe :

Many apologies to Mr. Kimura for my mistakingly seeing china origins when I did a super quick search. 
I also hope no one thought because I pointed out that it's a very old school look, with a new name being attached to it, that I was implying anything about quality - his company is obviously putting out good quality; a lot of famous custom shops did not. 
 

I have no clue what the multi quote statement means. 
 

I didn't know S&S sold knucklehead engines.  I assume it's not an exact replica but has some modern updates (like fewer oil leaks?  )

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Engine types: Flat head, Shovel head, Nail head, Hemi head etc.

Just catching this thread, and though H-Ds aren't really my thing, that looks like a nice custom.  I've been looking at a few bikes on Iconic's site... how'd the transaction with them go?  Recommended?

Rodan said:

Just catching this thread, and though H-Ds aren't really my thing, that looks like a nice custom.  I've been looking at a few bikes on Iconic's site... how'd the transaction with them go?  Recommended?

So Iconic was pretty good. But they have no clue about vintage American bikes IMO. They really know the Japanese and Italian stuff. They just did the commission sale on this one and I go the title directly from the original owner. From a paperwork and contacting me perspective holy crap are they good, it was about a three hour negotiation by text to get to a price, then they sent me the ACH info and I paid and picked up on the same day.  I have waited for food longer then that. If they had sent better pictures of the Type 9 I would have bought that as well it was dirty in the photos because it had just been delivered and well I am going to regret that. Is still for sale but I wanted to do a package deal with a discount for both bikes and not negotiate for two singles. I would say they are a bit like Bring a Trailer and a commission house, the shop they have is incredible and the machines there can work wonders on the rarer bikes based on other buyers I know.

They can weed out the crazies and the fake stuff but it was clear on the phone this bike was not their usual thing. Now when I talked to them about a mH900E they knew that bike inside and out and had sold something like 10 of them I believe. They are going to ping me on the next CBR250RR MC22 which they know of at least one that is popping up I believe. I really want one of those or a ZX4RR that has good mods. 

As for the motor S&S makes a knuckle replica motor, it looks like a 1938 with a few other improvements. Specifically it seals up better, less leaking at the cams, better oiling, about 70% more power and it has digital ignition built into a stock looking distributor. It will fool anyone who does not look really know the case shapes and the vin from about 5 feet away. Mine was not setup right, needed a bit of a timing change and it was seriously unhappy with the venting on the carburetor bowl due to the velocity stack that was on it when I bought it. like it wanted to throw you off the bike with how laggy and spikey the tuning was.  

I went through the whole bike and I have done about 75 miles now with it properly running and its a hoot. Only really issue is the bars are too narrow and it makes the handling above 75mph really twitchy. Also I do not like the forward control locations but not much I can do with the big open primary. I also found a lot of loose bolts and jsut things that needed a little tweaking to be to my quality specification. Not a knock on the seller I am just super picky. 

In reply to wearymicrobe :

Thanks for the detailed reply... I almost bid on a 2000 R1 a few weeks ago, and I've been eyeballing a couple of the VFR400s for auction there.  Good to know they're a solid outfit.

The guy you want to talk with is Abhi. Just tell them Mike with the zero engineering sent you.