Russ Collins

[Earl Svorks]

 I saw the posting about the death of Russ Collins . I had some exposure to his craft.What follows is what I remember of that experience.
Back when RC Engineering was having a riot with 750 single cam racing stuff, there was a young guy that wanted his CB 750
to be able to smoke the other young guy who had a 900 Kaw that was equipped with a turbo system.
  The first young guy was a customer at the shop ,in Winnipeg, where I was employed. A plan was hatched to , shall we say,,
enhance our customer's mostly stock , early 70s Honda CB 750. The RC Engineering "Cobra" engine kit was chosen. Claims
of a 10 second capable ride were all that he needed to hear  to put the money down. The boss and I drove to Calgary to visit a shop that was the nearest source of RC stuff  We acquired this box of trick parts, pistons, rods cylinder sleeves, cam shaft,
valves ,springs and a big Mallory distributor that ran off the crank at 90 degrees. A volume of directions for the machine work
and build instructions. This was a lot of work, a lot of money, but the outcome was something really amazing. This 1,000 cc engine was a brute that you couldn't kick over at first with something like 275 psi of engine compression. The cyl head had to come back off to have the chambers relieved ,then cc'd. In the end, I think it still
needed aviation fuel to stop it knocking. When it was sorted out enough for a test ride I was only too happy to be the first
test pilot. As this bike was expected to be a bit lighter on the front, a local machine shop cut the fork tubes down an inch
to offset this. I have enclosed a picture of that first test drive. That's me with a nice wheelie getting started. So far so good.
What the picture doesn't show is  the moment that the front wheel came back to the pavement, perhaps with a little more
inertia than the perfect landing would have, the left side fork leg, with new threads in the top, lost it's top nut, the fork spring, and most of it's fork oil. This all came out like a cannon had been fired at my face. How the hard parts managed to
miss me altogether I will never know. A face full of fork oil in my eyes my  nostrils, my  left ear  my cake hole.
  All in all, not a very pleasant experience,, but the ride leading up to all that was one I still like to remember.
  The customer had that bike for about a week before he crashed it hard enough to tear the distributor off and take the
end of the crankshaft with it

[rktmanfj]