In 2011 a self-confessed bike nerd and his style mannequin girlfriend took half of their first land velocity trials occasion at Bonneville salt flats. Throughout the years which have since handed, Alp Sungurtekin and Jalika Gaskin have amassed a powerful assortment of 13 land velocity information. Much more spectacular is that the record consists of the file for the quickest 650cc pushrod engine of all time.
This bike is Alp’s newest land velocity racer named the “Killa Bee”. The Triumph engined beast is a ground-up creation, most of which was fabricated from scratch by Alp in his modest workshop. After being blown away by pictures of the Killa Bee I contacted Alp to study extra about this spectacular bike and his aspirations for its future.
Alp educated as an industrial designer and went on to concentrate on transportation design. Right this moment although he designs and builds {custom} bikes and engines full-time as Alp Racing Design. The Alp Racing Design workshop is a transformed 2-car storage positioned at his house in Los Angeles, California. The majority of his enterprise includes race bikes however his portfolio additionally consists of bikes pieced collectively for personal collectors.
By all accounts, Alp is an extremely modest man. He’s the definition of a quiet achiever however regardless of his humble manner, he caught the eye of the customarily rambunctious {custom} bike neighborhood. This finally led to him unveiling the Killa Bee on the 2022 Born Free Present the place occasion organisers Mike and Grant awarded him with the distinguished ‘Born Free Founder’s Award’. The principle purpose of this venture was by no means to easily look good although. The Killa Bee was constructed to go quick and it has already proved greater than able to attaining that activity.
The Killa Bee got here into existence after a shopper commissioned Alp to construct it. The zealous buyer needed a bike able to setting a brand new land velocity file; specifically, the file for the quickest 1000cc pushrod engine. That title is presently held by a Harley Davidson constructed by Yankee Engineuity Specific and it set the bar at 166.843mph.
Alp describes his Killa Bee as an experimental design. There was no donor as such for the venture but when it was to be labelled as something it might be a Nineteen Fifties Triumph pre-unit. When designing a bike like this, Alp begins by sketching out an concept on paper. From there he jumps straight into the construct which he describes as a freehand strategy.
“The principle concept was to scale back the frontal space and maintain the centre of gravity as little as potential,” says Alp. “I’ve achieved many various kinds of frames however I needed to make use of flat aluminium sheets on this one.”
The results of Alp’s strategy is a really distinctive chassis design. There’s no tubing like a standard bike body. As a substitute, your complete construction is made up of a thick 6061 aluminium sheet. Alp’s course of of making the construction can be relatively surprising. In a world the place CNC machining and laser/water jet cutters would make brief work of this design, Alp opted to do all the pieces old-fashioned. Consequently, every bit of the Killa Bee’s body was lower on a band noticed earlier than being painstakingly filed and completed by hand.
“This bike can be all modular. There’s no welding much like my earlier Vincent land velocity racer design,” says Alp. “All last proportions are restricted to official guidelines and specs for the LSR bike lessons by which the bike is meant to race.”
Holding Alp’s modular body collectively are handfuls of beefy bolts. Sandwiched between the higher members of the chassis is a {custom} machined headstock, once more made by Alp, which makes use of the same design to his record-breaking Vincent. Though it actually appears to be like the half, the chin fairing is the one part of this venture that was constructed for present. Completed in a color scheme matched ‘Sign Yellow’ Nineteen Sixties Porsche color by Alp’s good pal Bryan Thompson of Thompson Cycles, the chin piece is eliminated previous to racing.
As for the engine, it’s Alp’s personal go-fast concoction. “The engine base is a Nineteen Fifties pre-unit Triumph and the circumstances are new,” he says. “They had been sand forged and machined to my specs by Thunder Engineering.” There’s additionally a set of rocker packing containers from a Triumph T140 integrated into the engine design which now runs on 95% nitromethane and generates a really spectacular 150hp.
For the ignition system, Alp has opted for a uncommon earth Morris Magneto. The cams have been custom-made to his personal specs by Net Camshafts and the valvetrain is by Kibblewhite Precision Machining. Alp additionally sourced many Triumph spares for the construct from JRC Engineering and utilised elements from the Pingel catalogue for the throttle setup, kill switches and demanding gas valves.
Unsurprisingly, beginning an engine like that is no imply feat. With Jalika’s help, Alp fires the beast into life by squirting methanol straight into the mouths of the forward-facing carburettors. As you’d count on it makes loads of noise when it does begin, however pleasing the neighbours isn’t one thing that sits excessive on this race staff’s record of priorities.
There’s no scarcity of challenges confronted when constructing a bike to compete in land-speed racing. So out of curiosity, we requested Alp what the largest problem he confronted in the course of the Killa Bee construct was.
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“Nearly all the pieces!” he jokes. “Frankly, the precise construct is the enjoyable/stress-free half. The true problem is determining all of the parts crucial to permit the bike to run on Nitromethane. Seeing my design/builds all come collectively and handle to operate in synchronicity, not to mention break strong information is what makes all of it worthwhile.”
With the Killa Bee accomplished and already sporting a trophy (albeit for wanting good whereas standing nonetheless), it’s time to see simply how briskly this bike can go. “We attended the USFRA check/tune occasion at Bonneville and the quickest run was 170.749 mph,” Alp says. “This was with 3/4 throttle and it nonetheless wants tuning! It is going to go quicker however I have no idea how briskly.”
The present file within the Killa Bee’s class stands at 166.843 mph so the bike is properly on its strategy to breaking that. Sadly, the 2022 Bonneville occasions had been cancelled as a consequence of water on the salt. The subsequent land velocity occasion Alp is attending shall be at El Mirage the place he has excessive hopes for the Killa Bee.
Alp and Jalika are an influence couple in each sense of the time period they usually now have their sights set on changing into members of the hallowed land velocity racing 200mph membership. Judging by what they’ve achieved to this point we predict that purpose is properly inside their attain.
Studio pictures by Derek Althen
