Revenge of the Amazonas
REVENGE OF THE AMAZONAS
DAVID EDWARDS
ENOUGH WAS ENOUGH: SOMEthing had to be done. The poorAmazonas had suffered too long.
The jokes about the bike's size were bad enough. But then, the Amazonas is a hit on the portly side. And the abusive comments about the bike's styling did have some basis in fact, although it should be pointed out that, with time, the Amazonas tends to become rather appealingcute, almost. Some people even went so far as to call it beautiful, which nicely balanced those critics who could barely spew out the words `~double butt-ugly" between hearty. gasping-for-air chortles.
Likewise, any criticisms of the Amazonas' handling, suspension or braking were legitimate. The bike might be a tribute to gung-ho Brazil ian engineering, hut it really is a roll ing. textbook display of how far mo torcycles have come in the past decade-and of how far the Amazo nas still has to go.
But the jibes that did the most damage were those regarding engine performance-or, more properly, the lack thereof. After all, here's a bike with a /600a engine, bigger than any motorcycle engine currently sold, and yet a lowly Honda Rebel 250 would blow the Amazonas' sidepanels off in a drag race. Sowe're talking big-time embarrassment here.
Ah, but this is America. And if there is one thing we Americans know how to do. it's make V-Dub en gines scream bloody horsepower. Dr. Ferdinand Porsche, who brought the Beetle to life in 1938. would proba bly cringe if he could see how we use his "people's car" today. We've got VW dragsters and VW hillclimbers and low-rider VW street rods and VW trikes and VW off-road buggies and even VW limousines. And the cry always is for more power. and still more power.
One of the companies that has achieved great success by catering to Beetle speed freaks is CB Perfor mance. 288 1 3 Farmersville Blvd., Farmersville, CA 93223: (209) 7338222. This central California outfit, Zformerly known as Claude's Buggies. has been in the business for almost 30 years. The CB catalog is chock-full of VW performance parts. and it was in this bible of go-fast bits that the Ama zonas was to find its salvation.
The chief faith-healer at CB is Gene Evans, an industrial tech pro fessor who spends his summers el bow-deep in Volkswagen engines. The only instructions we issued to Evans were to give our Amazonas some serious, big-league horse power-oh, say 145, the same as in Yamaha's King-Kong V-Max. "No problem," was his immediate reply.
To get that kind of power. Evitns simply laid hands on the stock, madein-Brazil engine. cast it aside and started pulling $2000 worth of mer chandise from his shelves until the only stock VW parts left were the cyl inder studs and the connecting rodsand even those had been machined. A week later, a 2275cc powerhouse of a motor was in place, pumping out an estimated 150 horses. "You'd have 1 5 to 20 more horsepower were it not for the stock pipes~" said Evans almost apologetically. "They're strangling the engine."
The f~undati~n for this Arnold Schwarzenegger of an engine was CB's 2275 engine kit, a package that includes a balanced crankshaft, bigbore cylinders, a hot cam and strengthened, aluminum engine cases. Next came the Competition Eliminator cylinder heads, a design worked out by Hans Hermann of Indy-car fame. And instead of retain ing the stock VW's single carb that mounts in the middle of the engine, Evans grafted two giant. 48mm downdraft Dell'Orto two-barrel carbs onto the cylinder heads, where they stick out in the breeze and announce
to the world that this is no ordinary pancake-Four.
A fleavy-duty VW transporter clutch connects all the newfound power to the stock transmission, but Evans was worried about these two items. "This engine should really have a competition clutch," he said. "We put one on at first, but it was nearly impossible to pull the handle bar lever in." And the transmission? "You really need a close-ratio set of gears, especially for the dragstrip."
Evans was justifiably proud of his handiwork. The new engine, with its polished valve covers, flat-black heads and finned air-cleaner covers. was a mechanical work of art. But Ev ans' real artistry showed up when the engine was started. Just a blip of the twistgrip was all it took to make our test riders true believers. A quick romp through the gears transformed them into zealous converts: and sud denly. all the snide comments about the Amazonas' dubious styling and sub-par handling were washed aside.
Still, we needd to back up our en thusiasm with hard numbers, which meant a trip to the timing lights at Carlsbad Raceway. Dragstri p artiste par excellence Jay Gleason was con scripted to do the quarter-miling, al though we didn't tell him exactly what it was he would be riding. After all, would you invite opera star Placido Dominguez to your backyard barbeque and tell him ahead of time that he had to sing "Ninety-nine Bot tles of Beer on the Wall?"
We needn't have worried. As soon as Gleason saw the bike, he was all over it. "Wow, an Amazonas! I've seen pictures of these . . . I've always wanted to ride one."
After some familiarization runs, Gleason notched himself up to gofast mode and reeled off a string of 14-second runs, with a trap speed of 98 mph. While not quite in the V Max class, that was about four sec onds and 22 mph better than stockwhich is light-years in dragstrip terms. But Gleason was frustrated nonetheless. The bike couldn't be powershifted from first gear to sec ond; it either overshifted to third or hung up in neutral, adding at least a second to the ETs.
After a break, Gleason tried two more passes, but the shifting prob lems persisted. So in an effort to get around the hang-up, he rolled to the staging lights and held up two fingers, indicating a second-gear start. Amaz ingly. the transporter clutch held up to this abuse, and Evans' pride and joy grunted its way to a 13.28-second charge at 102.38 mph.
Gleason was impressed. "This is definitely the weirdest streetbike I've ever ridden," he said, "but I'll tell you what; it puts out so much torque it makes my V-Max seem flat on the bottom end."
The truth is, the Killer Amazonas makes just about anything seem flat on the bottom end. And though its quarter-mile times are only margin ally quicker than those posted by the Gold Wing and the Kawasaki Voy ager, a tenth-of-a-second behind the Suzuki Cavalcade's and more than a half-second slower than the class champ Yamaha Venture, it's in the
60-to-80 mph top-gear roll-ons-a good indication of highway passing ability-that the Amazonas flat waxes its touring competition. While the stocker labored through this maneu ver in 10.8 seconds, the pumped-up bike charged through in 3.9 seconds, which is twice as quickly as the Hon
da and Kawasaki, two seconds ahead of the Suzuki, and a second-and-ahalf up on the Yamaha.
Now, let's see; with a 4-into-l col lector exhaust, a close-ratio racing transmission, an hydraulically as sisted competition clutch, maybe a turbocharger. ...
