Any build that’s based around a succinct combination of concepts always seems to turn out the best. Seek inspiration, and stick to it. The foundation for Royal-T Racing’s Landspeed Dyna was born when Luke DiCiurio and Patrick Tilbury asked themselves, ‘What would it look like if Harley built a competitor for the Suzuki Hayabusa… in the 1980s?’
The answer is what you see here, and it’s everything you’d expect and more. To me, what makes this bike particularly interesting isn’t just the mash-up of aesthetic and ideological concepts that came to rest on the Landspeed Dyna, as it’s been dubbed, but rather the fact that this bike will soon be making a proper land speed run at the Texas Mile. Ideally, at the end of this month.
The goal? Two hundred all-American miles per hour from a standing start.
The build was completed in New Orleans, Louisiana at Royal-T Racing and, naturally, the first thing you notice when you lay eyes on the Dyna are its unique aesthetics that were born from an ’07 Harley-Davidson Street Bob. From there, an FXRP fairing was used to create a buck to shape the aluminum bodywork found on the final product. Zoom in on the above images to see the welds hidden inside.
More fabrication magic — also known as hard work by Patrick, shown above, not on his phone — took place from around the middle of the bike back, and ultimately the only remaining H-D components are the neck and down-tube so that the factory VIN could be retained.
The idea was to combine racing styling cues and functionality with a coach-built quality level, and this ethos is continued when you dig deeper.
Power comes from a 124ci twin-cam engine that was built specifically for a turbocharged application by S&S Cycle out of Wisconsin. Of course, more fabrication would be necessary to reach the ultimate goal, and roughly 300hp is expected. This is in part thanks to a Comp Turbo CT3 turbocharger and a handmade intercooler assembly, as well as a stainless steel header and aluminum down-pipe. I love the details that are fully on display but can’t be seen in their entirety until you spend some time with the machine.
While it looks stunning and fired up for the first time just days before the The One Moto Show in Portland, Oregon some weeks back, it wasn’t all smooth sailing. In fact, the build started a few years ago, and Patrick explains that making the standalone Haltech engine management system work with the unusual application seemed to be a never-ending headache, but it was worth it in the end. The custom harness was completed by GK Finish Line.
Zooming back out, it’s hard not to appreciate the wheels, which were designed in-house at Royal-T. Inspiration is said to have come from early Le Mans-spec Porsche turbo-fan wheels, thus keeping the ’80s vibe very much alive. I really enjoy the result here, and the wheels pair nicely with the front brake rotors and sprockets, which were made specifically for this build by Chopper Hauss. Meanwhile, the rear brakes and linkage were more one-off parts made in-house.
It really would be easy to go on and on with the details, but the fact of the matter is that Royal-T Racing has succeeded in their goal to create an ’80s-inspired Hayabusa-hunter. Just one question remains: how fast will it actually go?
Trevor Yale Ryan
Instagram: trevornotryan
Additional Photos by Sara Ryan
Instagram: pockowokosara