One look at this bike from Duane Kastor Customs (DKC) and it's obvious you are looking at something original. Duane is not a builder who is out there to copy anyone's style, but you will see some West Coast influences from the nostalgic hot rod era-a fondness from Duane's youth. Between the ages of 11 and 12, Duane spent a lot of time in his dad's auto body shop. It was there he learned how to shape and form sheetmetal. He also learned how to sand and paint all the projects he worked on. A family friend told him about a motorcycle salvage yard not far from his home so any free time Duane had, he could be found working on some junked bike in his dad's shop. The owner of the salvage yard eventually let Duane work on a few of his customers' bikes. During these formative years, Duane started saving money for a bike of his own. Jump ahead a few years-he found a good deal on a '69 Sportster. OK, we'll just say he had enough money to get it and leave it at that. After spending a lot of time on that bike kicking, screaming, and wrenching for hours just to keep it on the road, Duane decided to sell the Sportster and use the money to build a bike from the ground up.
What inspired Duane to build this hot rod-style chopper was based on a hot rod he saw, along with a liking for most of the cars of the '50s and '60s. Hell, he even has a few cartoons he can tell you about that have given him inspiration. As with all of DKC bikes, the one thing they all have in common is a funky paintjob, and this one is no different. According to Duane, one of the most often made comments about the bike is, "That's a bad-ass bike-not the colors I would use, but still cool." To Duane, comments like those are just more reason to use the colors he does. Duane had a specific vision for this bike in his mind before he even ordered the first part. Josh at Killer Chopper Cycle Fabrication executed Duane's ideas for the frame exactly as Duane had envisioned. The single downtube would serve as the oil bag and house a set of custom foot controls. He wanted the chopper to be long but not too long. So a 42-degree neck along with 8 inches of downtube and 4 inches of backbone were added to fit just right. Duane got his hands on a 6-over frontend from Revenge Cycle, and he soon went to work on shaving the lower legs and working a little more shape to the triple-trees. To cover up the tubes, he used a set of orange dirt bike boots to match the color of the tubes and trees. He then fit a set of drag bars under the trees with internal throttle and clutch.
Next, a set of DNA spoke wheels were put in place, with a 21-incher up front and an 18x10-incher out back that were both covered in Metzeler rubber. To keep the front looking clean, Duane did not run a brake choosing only an HHI rotor and caliper to handle the stopping power in the rear.
When it came time for the powerplant, Duane already had a good working relationship established with Scott Porges at American Motorcycle Service. He had Scott build him a tricked out 113ci S&S motor. Scott ordered the motor disassembled for two reasons: to get the cases and the cylinders powdercoated, and to make the three Stromberg carburetors work (with a few tricks up his sleeve). The cylinders were decked 0.015-inch and the heads were ported to make the combustion chamber modified to 11.5-to-1 compression. He then used a custom-ground Zippers high-static compression cam with a faster ramp speed. The cam started out with a 0.656-inch lift, and Jim's rocker arm ratio boosts the lift to almost 0.700-inch overall. The valves snap open and shut very quickly so there is not a lot of overlap. That's one of the tricks that Scott used to get the three carbs to work-the other tricks we can't talk about.
Jon Huband machined a set of panhead-style rocker box tops for Duane's S&S, then he headed out to get a set of old hot rod velocity stacks from one of his many old car part sources. He got a set of reconditioned carburetors from Baxter Ford along with the stacks. The Strombergs were designed to run on unleaded fuel but with all the motor work done to them, they run just fine on pump gas and like crap on race gas. The hardest part was fitting the carbs to a manifold that work with an Evo motor. Duane called up Jon Huband once again to work some more magic and hammer and chisel out a manifold to fit the motor specs Scott needed. When he got the manifold it was a prefect fit.