A Dual Engine Triumph Motorcycle Build Diary
One of my personal passions is motorcycle land speed racing. My brother Kyle and I started racing together at Bonneville Speed Week at the Bonneville Salt Flats in 2010. It is rare that I have missed a race since then. Building the engines, the purpose-built bikes, tuning them on the dyno, piloting them down the race course, and setting records, all with some of my best friends, is hard to beat.
Kyle Malinky (left) and Tyler Malinky (right) on their Triumph land speed bikes after a run at Bonneville Speed Week 2011.
Risk increases with speed, and as you will read below in some details involving a crash at over 150 mph, sometimes dues have to be paid. There is yang to balance out the yin, but so far the yin has kept me chasing higher speeds on ridiculous machines that can make me question what, indeed, am I doing?
With my focus being deep on the machines and the racing, I don’t often spend much time sharing the details my experiences publicly. I decided to change that, and I hope that you find things of interest or of value in my writings below.
Tyler's 'Double Vision' dual-engine pre-unit Triumph along with the historic Gyronaut X-1, also powered by two Triumph engines. Gyronaut X-1 had a top speed, one-way run of 264.437mph in October of 1970. Photo by Jon Glover, Bonneville Speed Week 2013.
As it is very pertinent, I also thought back through the last decade and included an overview of my first dual engine Triumph “Double Vision” built in 2012, as well as my single engine bike that served as a successful test vehicle for design features carried over into the new dual engine build.
Tyler's single-engine 1950 Triumph land speed race motorcycle. Current Bonneville record holder (as of 8/11/24 at time of writing) in the 750cc A-VG class (special construction, vintage gas) at 130.503 mph and A-VF class (special construction, vintage fuel) at 126.812 mph.
If you have questions, please leave a comment at the bottom and I will be happy to answer them! As my dual is an actively raced machine, I will update this post as we continue to tune it, race it, and set records with it!
My First Dual Engine Triumph Land Speed Racing Motorcycle
A Brief History Of My First Dual Engine Build
My first motorcycle was a 1970 Triumph Bonneville, and from then on I was a Triumph guy at heart. I had seen old photos of dual engine Triumph drag bikes on the internet over the years and always thought they were the coolest thing possible.
Dual-engine Inspiration: "Dubble Trubble", a dual engine Triumph built in 1953 by Bud Hare. The first dual-engine motorcycle. The gas tank lettering was painted by Von Dutch.
After reading about the first dual engine bike Dubble Trubble, and then the article The Art Of The Dragster by Boris Murray, I was fully inspired and decided to build my own. If guys were building dual engine bikes in their barn with basic parts and equipment, why couldn’t I do the same?
More inspiration: Boris Murray taking one of his dual-engine Triumphs down the drag strip.
My original dual engine bike, which I dubbed Double Vision, was built in late 2011 and early 2012, and debuted at Bonneville Speed Week that year, where it broke a record, but just.
Tyler's first dual, 'Double Vision' at Bonneville Speed Week in August 2012, just after winning 'Best Competition' at Born Free 4 in June of the same year. Photo by Jon Glover.
The frame was designed and built by a name some of you might recognize, David Bird. David built hardtail frames for Triumph and BSA for Lowbrow for many years until he retired.
Starting the Triumph race bike frame build at Dave's shop in Missouri.
It's starting to look like a bike! The frame-in-progress with one set of empty mock up engine cases in place.
I had headed down to Dave’s home and shop near Joplin, Missouri for a week to assist with the frame building. At the time that meant I helped bend some tubing and watched and learned as Dave built the frame! Upon getting home I stared at the frame and thought for a few months before starting fabrication.
A couple of unrelated unit Triumph engines, along with the two engines destined for the dual-engine chassis on the workbench in Todd's home garage.
The engines back then were mainly stock engines with some hot cams, and were assembled by Todd Muller here at Lowbrow.
This is the first way the primary was set up on 'Double Vision'. Pretty simple machined sprockets and 530 chain drive linking the engines, and a stock-style Triumph primary. Simple.
The engines utilized stock crankshafts, and I machined and welded together some 530 chain sprockets to the stock Triumph engine primary gears to create a 530 chain link between the two engines. These were linked to a stock Triumph 4 speed transmission with a duplex primary chain. I only ran this setup the first year, after which (in 2013) I switched to a belt primary, leaving a 530 chain linking the engines. By 2014, the primary and engine setup was all belts, the chains were gone.
This was the first time the bike came off the lift. Tyler's home garage, circa late 2011.
Double Vision was built on-the-fly, components designed and fit to the chassis as I moved forward. The vast majority of the fabrication was completed in early 2012 over just a few months as I worked hard to debut the bike at Born Free 4 where I was an Invited Builder.
Double Vision at Born Free 4 in California, where it won 'Best Competition'.
I finished the bike, got it running, and we drove it cross country to California just in time for the show. I received the ‘Best Performance’ award that year. However, the real event was yet to come that August.
Setting Records At Bonneville On My First Dual
After returning from Born Free with Double Vision, I spent some time on the dyno getting it tuned and race ready. Along with my brother, dad, and some other best friends we loaded up and drove cross country to Utah, and Bonneville Speed Week 2012.
This brings back the memories! Our old race trailer at Speed Week, 2012 or 2013.
The first year with Double Vision went well considering it was a new build, and the most complex machine I had built, tuned or raced at the time. I was making runs in the 130’s (mph) but had some various teething issues. One such issue was that the chain linking the engines would get extremely hot each run, as it was air cooled and not in an oil bath.
The crew! Left to Right: Greg, Shawn, Joe, Kyle, Tyler, Denny (Kyle & Tyler's dad), Jon. Photo by Jon Glover.
On the go. Note the white duct tape on Tyler's right calf. The calf zipper broke during the race, and each time he donned his leather, his leathers had to get taped shut.
I also ended up having an issue during a record qualifying run, and the subsequent run backing up the new record. I thought I was having clutch slip, but in fact the clutch hub had spun on the transmission mainshaft, shearing the woodruff key.
In Impound, having qualified for a record. Wrenching and changing the rear sprocket, getting ready for a return run. The average of the two runs must beat the existing record to set a new one! Getting ready to run over 150mph...
What I thought was clutch plates slipping was actually the clutch hub spinning on the mainshaft at full speed, and then welding itself back in position to keep propelling the bike forward. In any case, I eeked out a record that year and determined the cause of the slippage during disassembly and inspection after the race.
Helllllll yessssssss. Photo by Jon Glover.
For the 2013 season I made many changes, including highly effective porting and head work and exhaust length tuning that led to an increase of around 30 horsepower (!!). Almost every run at Speed Week 2013 was faster than the prior, and I broke multiple existing records and then proceeded to increase the new record speeds. The event ended with broken records in three 1350cc classes:
- APS-VF (special construction, partially streamlined, vintage fuel): 151.448 mph
- A-VF (special construction, vintage fuel: 148.871 mph
- APS-VG (special construction, partially streamlined, vintage gas): 140.210 mph
Testing out a new 2-into-1 exhaust (one on each side) at the ECTA Ohio Mile. Photo by Jon Glover.
In 2014 Speed Week was rained out and I campaigned the bike at the Ohio Mile, which was a standing mile course. That is, from a dead stop at the starting line the goal is to achieve top speed at the 1 mile mark. Double Vision set a top speed and ECTA Ohio course record for the A/VG-1350/4 1350cc class at 140.186 mph.
Joe getting ready to load Poison Ivy back into the chase van, after one of the runs down the Salt.
Through the few years campaigning Double Vision I realized some shortcomings and went back to racing Poison Ivy, my very first land speed pre unit Triumph. You can check out photos of Poison Ivy at Speed Week 2017 here, and read more about that event!
I started thinking about a new dual engine design, though it would be more than half a decade before it came to fruition.
Building A Test Bed For The New Dual: My Record Holding Single-Engine Triumph Race Bike
Renewed Dual-Engine Desire Fueled By A Successful Race Season
I approached everything differently on my latest single-engine 750cc Triumph land speed race bike. It is as yet unnamed, I often refer to it as ‘my nickel framed bike’ or ‘my A-bike’, and I built it and debuted it at Speed Week in 2018.
This bike was my first experience mixing modern CAD design to moderate level while designing and building a motorcycle. The A-bike was meant as a test bed for many components and ideas that I intended to put to use on a new dual engine build.
The 'snout' on the primary cover gives the extra room necessary for the longer output shaft on the crankshaft. The custom crank was built for a dual engine bike, but is getting tested in this single-engine chassis.
Even the crankshaft I used in the engine build was a custom billet crank I designed specifically for use in a dual engine setup where the engines would be linked at the cranks with a belt and pulley system. This is the reason for the ‘snout’ on the front of the primary cover. It is enclosing the overly-long crankshaft, as the extra pulley isn’t needed in the single-engine configuration.
The two billet Triumph crankshafts during production.
It's called a billet crank for a reason... the two cranks were turned out of one giant piece of billet steel! Shot peened and nitrided, with a custom output shaft side of the crank, longer to link the engines with pulleys and belts.
My First Time Designing A Motorcycle In 3D CAD
CAD pre unit Triumph land speed bike, in progress, 2018.
To start, I modeled parts of the frame in 3D CAD, including the backbone (which is also the gas tank), Triumph engine, various other mounts, and the remainder of the frame, along with the axle plates. I use CAD to design individual motorcycle parts for Lowbrow Customs, however, I had never used it to design a custom motorcycle.
The drag bike frame that inspired my land speed bike. The drag bike used the backbone for an oil tank, I turned my backbone into the fuel tank.
Initially I wanted to use an old drag bike frame I had, a modified pre unit Triumph factory rigid frame. As I sand blasted it and inspected it further, it was in poor shape and wouldn't be safe to run as-is, though I used some components of it to give it a renewed life.
Actually, just one component was used, a chunk of the seat post which you can see in this photo above.
The single-engine bike frame in-progress. Built by Tim Fiorucci at The Gasbox after-hours, before he went on to open his own shop, Fiorucci Fabrications.
The frame comes apart in 3 pieces. Note the chunk of seat post that is from the red pre unit Triumph drag bike frame. The axle plates (not shown) bolt on, which allows changes to ride height and wheelbase.
Tim Fiorucci of Fiorucci Fabrication built the frame for me (though back then he worked at The Gasbox, and built the frame there after-hours), with some slight changes to the rear frame rails versus my original design. Once the physical frame was finish welded, I updated the CAD model to match. Once this was completed I finalized the seat, seat struts, rear cowl (which serves as a rear fender underneath the seat area), belly pan and chainguard.
The finished bike off the lift and outside for the first time. Tyler built the engine and the rest of this bike in his garage.
This worked well and the finished bike fit me perfectly, was light weight, and is still an active record holder in the SCTA record books at the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah, USA.
The path into the record books wasn't exactly a straight line. Well, it was pretty straight, but went more like straight, tank slapper, low side, high side, tumble... And then straight again. At Speed Week 2019, after waiting for days for racing to begin after a heavy rainfall, I was impatient to get in one solid run and set a record speed.
Unfortunately, the conditions were so wet and loose that I lost control at over 120 mph and crashed, shattering the radius bone in my left arm as a result.
The bike went end-over-end, bending the frame, fork tubes, and many other things. However, I rebuilt the bike, nickel-plated the frame, and had it looking and operating better than ever for Speed Week 2020. For more on this you can check out our popular video, Bonneville: A Lowbrow Redemption Story. It covers our racing in 2019, and the comeback in 2020.
The current record (as of time of writing in August 2024) in the 750cc A-VG (Special Construction, Vintage Gas) class is 130.503 mph, which I qualified for on my first run at Bonneville Speed Week 2020. I also broke the A-VF (Special Construction, Vintage Fuel) record which stands at 126.812 mph.
Now it was time to take what I had learned in the 8 years since building my first dual engine race bike, and to take it all to a much higher level of detail and engineering.
Building My Second Dual Engine Triumph Race Bike – 2020
Why Build A New Dual Engine Bike?
The new dual engine build could utilize many of the same components and engineering as my single engine bike, which was now a well-tested chassis. In addition, my racing experience and knowledge as an engine builder and tuner had advanced greatly in the years since my first dual engine race bike.
A tin type photograph of the new dual out on the Salt for the first time, just before the start of Bonneville Speed Week 2021.
My engines were producing much more horsepower than in the past and my race experience had taught me how to avoid issues that had cropped up over the years. Reliability both in engine and chassis is key to a fun and successful race season.
Minimizing problems while out racing saves many, many hours and a lot of frustration. This happens with experience, and proper preparation. Problems still crop up, however, so many never re-occur as we actively make changes to prevent them (for instance, safety-wiring a bolt that comes loose).
Spending hours making a sometimes ugly temporary fix to your formerly dialed-in, ready-to-rock race machine can be a bit of a downer, though necessary. I have found that more time spent during design, testing and fabrication in the shop saves ten times the work should a repair be needed out at the race course.
The Bones Of The New Build & Assembling The Crew
Custom Designed Pulleys Sat On The Shelf For 5 Years, Unused
Back in 2015 I had been thinking of a new dual engine bike and I had made a quick and somewhat crude drawing on a scrap of paper with the idea behind the pulleys I wanted to have made to use with custom billet crankshafts.
One of the original sketches as the idea behind the new dual engine pulleys and crankshaft design are tossed around. The bike wouldn't become a reality for more than five years.
This would allow two engines to be linked at the cranks with a belt system and would provide much more engagement and strength versus using stock Triumph crankshafts with shorter, stock output shafts. Also, the spline size was increased to the maximum that would fit through the inner diameter of the stock crankshaft bearings that fit into the pre unit Triumph crankcases. This larger spline size offers much more strength and rigidity versus the stock crankshaft, which was never intended to be used as I intended!
I sent a scan of my simple drawing to Bob Newby of Newby Belt Drives in the UK. Bob machined up the custom pulleys for me and shipped them to me. At that point they would bounce around a couple of my workshops over the years until they were used, as originally intended, 5 years later.
I HAVE WRITTEN THE REST, BUT AM PUTTING TOGETHER ALL THE PHOTOS FOR THE REST OF THIS ONGOING JOURNEY!
TO BE CONTINUED... STAY TUNED!
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