Thread: home made flame thrower

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I ride a 2002 Honda VLX. It was definitely not my first choice, but as I always say, chop whatcha got. I removed the spring and it rides rigid, I made a tooled leather seat with springs under it, K&N pod filter on carb, straight pipes, and soon another modification. I'd like to turn my pipes into flame throwers. Never saw it on a bike but I know many hot rodders do it. I've got several questions. First, I don't want to buy a kit, I want to make it all myself. That and I'm a cheap bastard.

To get started, what's the best way to wire these things? I plan on buying a plain jane coil. My bike has dual coils and I have not investigated the electrical system too closely yet, but do know that it has two coils and fires once on compression and once on exhaust stroke. There are magnetic pickups. What I want to know, is there a way to splice into one of the wires ran to an existing coil that will tell the new coil when to fire? I've heard of guys making buzz boxes and stuff, but if there were a way around it that would be much easier and cheaper. If not, what's the best way to make a buzz box? Do you use an existing points plate from a distributor or fab up your own job?

Also, I've heard that some of the kits cut out power to the motor's coil while it fires the coil for the flame thrower. I do not have much experience with this, but I would think you would want to keep the exhaust gases pushing out of the pipes so the flame travels outward. Am I right here? I do not want to have to shut down my engine, throw some flames, and then start it back up. Maybe somebody can explain better how these kits work.

Another thing, I have been told to just weld a nut on my pipes to thread the spark plug into. Isn't the plug going to foul very easily with the electrode very exposed like that? I didn't know if you guys made a small shield in front of it or not.

Does it matter if I use a small spark plug for this? I'm asking because even though this will be on the backside of the pipes, it will still be noticable. I want it to be as compact and neat as possible. I found some plugs for chain saws and weedeaters that are very small but don't know if these would provide enough spark. I do not want to weld a nut to fit these plugs to my pipes and then find out it won't work. There's also not much clearance between my pipes and the frame to work with.

I think that covers my questions so far, maybe you guys can give me a few more pointers. I'd appreciate any help I can get.

I already did the search, and those questions were still unanswered.

Streets:

I thought that the spark had to be intermittent or it could damage the exhaust system? A constant spark would work OK? Lord knows I don't need to be picking shrapnel out of my leg.

As to the rice, yes I ride a Honda. So my bike originated overseas. I guess people don't realize that several of the parts on Harleys come from Japan. I bet you also didn't know that several of the Honda bikes are now assembled in the US. It's funny how people look at my bike and hardcore is the last thing that pops in their mind when they see the Honda logo. I tell you what though, the looks on their faces was priceless when I was still out riding in 10 degree weather this winter and the "hardcore" Harley riders were caging it. I'm sure I put on more miles than most of them also. But yet my bike was made by Honda instead of Harley, so it must be inferior. I'm tired of people putting a damn brand on everything. Chop whatcha got.

I understood the posts in that thread, but had more questions that were not answered there.

I do not want the flame intermittent, but thought that the spark had to be intermittent. I thought that was the whole reason why the kits come with buzz boxes? I read somewhere that if the spark was constant that the flame could travel back up the exhaust and cause problems. Like I mentioned, I have no experience with flame throwers, hence the questions.

Mine is more complicated because it's a competition set-up. The buzz box is of my own design and I use a pre-mix fuel injected into the pipe just upstream of the plugs. You can let the engine trigger the extra coil, but it usually starts missing and fouls the plugs (at least mine did).

Flamethrower update...I used straight gasoline in my flame tank and had some rodder buddies cook weenies on my pipes, hot rod lunch food for sure. They had a funny after-taste, though....

You know, I thought of something sweet. What if I had the flamethrower connected to a remote, with a solenoid to pull the throttle. I could flame' from 30 feet away!!!

Madgrinder:

I probably won't throw flames but for maybe 5 seconds at a time or so. How often did you flame for it to foul your plugs? I think that if I do it for short periods of time and not all the time that the plugs should self-clean a bit. I'm going to pick up the stuff I need this week and try it out!

So what's your vote??? Will the ricer: A. Gernade itself, or B. Not work at all, or C. Who cares, it's a ricer??? Just vote silently, not worth starting a poll for this one!!! Sorry man, rice rockets must have their own forum somewheres on the net.

Dave:

Although foreign, my bike is far from rice. There are no TypeR or NOS stickers, or any stickers for that matter, it is tastefully done, and I do not make it out to be fast. It is actually very slow and I'm always the first to admit it. I do not go around reving the motor trying to race people and act like an idiot. Hell I don't even like Jap cars, but when it comes to bikes it's hard to beat Honda's reliability and value. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have a Harley or even Brit bike to chop but do not have the money and won't for some time. I'll invite you to take a look at a few pictures of my bike and have included a link at the end of this post. If you don't like it, that's fine, maybe you'll at least appreciate the work I've put into it. I see cars all the time that I don't like the look or the car/bike they began with but I appreciate the craftsmanship and work put into it. I think that's a big part of chopping and rodding.

http://gallery.roeiboot.com/2002vlx

You said a mouthfull, pal.

I don't want to start a riot, or anything, but "chop what you got" has always been my thing, too.

I type this as I'm taking a break from working on my Corvair. I drive one of the biggest jokes in automotive history.

"Yes, as a matter of fact, it does flip over. I have to turn it right-side-up every morning when I drive it to work"

Yup, nice Honda.......Sorry man, just hate to see my money going out of the country when there are people looking for work right here at home. Of course, we can no longer call it sending work overseas to be done, to be politically correct we must call it outsourcing !!!!!

Nothing personal, the worksmanship is great. I apologize for using this forum and your thread to make a political statement.

Dave:

No apology necessary, I understand and agree with you. Whenever looking for parts and such, I always try to buy from somebody in town when possible. The owner of a small local shop even told me one day that I could get tires and parts cheaper from Dennis Kirk or JP Cycles. I'd rather pay a little bit more and keep business local when I can. I work for Wal-Mart and hate their corporate bullshit and how they keep buying cheaper and cheaper crap and cutting down American countries to offer products at a lower rate. I disagree with much that they do and try to shop there as little as possible. But, when it came time to buy a bike I needed a reliable one and had to stay around 4 grand. I am young, fixing to start a family, and am trying to stay out of debt as much as possible. 4 grand can't buy much of a new bike unless you go metric, so I did. I ride all over and don't have the money to be fixing broken parts on the side of the road. A little known fact about Honda is that they now have (don't know how long it's been there) a factory in Ohio I believe that builds several models of bikes they sell. Sure they're still Japanese parts but at least they're using American labor to assemble them.

Streets,

Re: Serious machines: It's spelled D-U-C-A-T-I, not Harley.

The truly hard-core don't ride Harleys; they rebuild European or Japanese equipment, modifying them to their personal specs, and ride hard and fast....

Alexi

Ducks are cool

Originally posted by Alexi LeBrun
Streets,

Re: Serious machines: It's spelled D-U-C-A-T-I, not Harley.

The truly hard-core don't ride Harleys; they rebuild European or Japanese equipment, modifying them to their personal specs, and ride hard and fast....

Alexi

I, can't say as I agree with you Alexi, The first thing people do to there new Harley is put on a diffrent exzaust system and change a few other parts. European bikes are very diffrent and very respectable for that fact Ex. Moto Guzzi. Jap bikes rarely have anything done to them other than new plastics and a race pipe. Now I'm not compleatly dissagreeing with you because Ducati is a very nice bike but, Harley davidson does have the customozation end of it all, look at the people who make custom choppers and use Harley engines, They normally use the Evoloution or the Panhead engine. I also cannot shoot down Japaniese bikes cause I own two. I own a 1978 Suzuki Ds100 ( Dirt Bike ) and a 1978 Suzuki Ds125 ( Dirt Bike ) but, these are older bikes and only have plastic fenders.

They were cheap, the 100 was $30.00 and my dad paid 300.00 for the 125.