BMW R Nine TE Project
I have taken some risks in my career, this one might have pushed things too far, but more on that later on in this post.
The plan here was relatively simple, make a motorcycle that emulate’s my 180SX drift car.
The stock BMW is a cool machine, it’s a simple bike that packs a healthy amount of torque and horsepower, it’s styling is classic but it doesn’t push retro too far, I love riding them and I think it’s a great base for a project.
Full transparency though, I chose the R Nine T platform because I had a direct link to the BMW Motorcycle marketing team that were looking for ways to promote these bikes. An overstock on the showroom floor allowed me to flex my creativity without a huge financial cost, the popularity of these pages along with the social accounts have given me the ability to operate at a higher level than I otherwise would have.
To emulate my 180SX drift car with a motorcycle it required me to focus on a few key aspects, the first was fitting a TE37 rear wheel. The adapter was required to change the PCD from 5x120 to 5x114.3.
The rim was an original TE37 that I ran at WTAC, I damaged it by dipping it into the ripple strip edge and cracking it. I repaired the crack but it kept forming and I later replaced it when I found a new one for sale.
To facilitate the rear wheel the offset and the bore diameters needed to match my intended wheel and width, the intended width of the rear wheel was dependant on the tyre I was set to choose.
Once the tyre was chosen, the offset machined into the spacer and the rim cut in half I could slip the 10.5” wide halves over each other, prep the weld area and start the task of welding the two halves together.
Once welded together I could let everything cool down slowly and start working on other areas of the bike.
I stripped the bike down to the bare essentials and got to work on the other aspects of the transformation.
The exhaust system uses two 316 stainless 1.75” primary tubes that merge into a single 3” tube that then snakes it’s way around the swingarm, subframe and splits off into a twin 3” system that emulates the 180SX drift cars tailpipe. Its a large exhaust for a bike of this nature but I was excited to hear it fire up.
I’m happy thats over!
Off to visit Karl from KDS designs who would be trusted with matching the red bodywork, the tinted headlight and the bronze wheels.
The vision was starting to take shape.
I had a pair of broken canards that I was able to cut down and mount on the fairing of the bike, it was the perfect fit and it further introduced the theme of the 180SX into the BMW.
Heat cycling the exhaust is one of my favorite things to do, the first fire up requires perfectly clean pipes, no finger prints, no grease or grime or else this will burn into the finish of the pipe.
Time to visualise this as intended, with the 180SX drift car.
It’s so cool seeing them together like this.
The agressive stance for both machines come’s from my careful consideration for rim offsets, tyre sizes, hight and rake.
Remember at the start of this post I spoke about risk? Well this was the very first ride.
The Geelong Revival is a 1/4 mile sprint round a corner, I lined up and though nothing of it, revved the bike up, dumped the clutch, ran through the gears and over the finish line. I peaked at the speedo and then remembered I am on a completely untested bike, I made my own wheel out of two pieces and I dont even know if the brakes work……… They did and I live to tell the tale but I ought to at least do some test rides before doing this in the future.
It was a fun event but thats where the touring first began for this bike.
I had the opportunity to take both machines on the road, first filming with Shannons at AARC.
Then WTAC for demos and display.
BMW even took it to the Moto GP for display.
I think this is proof that the TE37 design will go down as the ultimate wheel for anything, the red and bronze just makes it even better. This was a fun, thanks BMW for the opportunity, thanks Dean Walters for the photos, Lee Turner for the video and Karl for the paint.