Guy builds a Kawasaki S2 350 4cyl

[Liability]

Been watching this guy over the past year, finally posted a riding vid. sounds sweet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr-qnNWzwdY

[RDFL]

Very impressive does sound perfectly tuned. Great work on pipes too.

[m in sc]

look for the video of the 4 cyl h1 with rd250lc cyls. 

[AAAltered]

I love these engineering marvels....

[pidjones]

If you ever get to Barber Motorsports Museum (no, make that make the effort to go - vintage weekend is a hoot!) they have several specials with things like double joined 3s, 4s, 6s.

[Liability]

Just seen the h1/RD250lc build. Same guy, huh... what a gem

[m in sc]

millyards a legend. I've seen a few of his bikes in real life, outside museum settings.

[pdxjim]

I love his quiet softspoken genius demeanor.

The 5 litre "Flying Millyard"  is fantastic.  Handmade cases, crankshaft, connecting rods and carbs.

Outstanding!

[paul1478]

This guy really is the best. I have seen about everything he has put out on YouTube.
I watched one of his videos, he used 2 cylinders from a aircraft engine. Make the cases crank ect.
then he came to the carb, well there was not one so I just made one. He made a carb. and it worked. that part really amazed me.
He has an interview with someone i just watched. Goes into how he got into bikes what he has done and how. He said most of his first ones were done with a hacksaw and files, only.
I want him as my neighbor!

[RDryan]

This guy really is the best. I have seen about everything he has put out on YouTube.
I watched one of his videos, he used 2 cylinders from a aircraft engine. Make the cases crank ect.
then he came to the carb, well there was not one so I just made one. He made a carb. and it worked. that part really amazed me.
He has an interview with someone i just watched. Goes into how he got into bikes what he has done and how. He said most of his first ones were done with a hacksaw and files, only.
I want him as my neighbor!

I watched that youtube video you mentioned about him being interviewed. The tour of the shop and his tools is amazing. It's a very confined space. Kinda reminds me of someone imprisoned in Alcatraz and being able to spoon a tunnel their way out. Well not quite but it just seems amazing that he can fabricate and work in such a confined space. However he made a quite bit of sense telling us viewers about how many of us will fill a big space up with stuff only to confine the actual working space into something much smaller. I'm really impressed with his purposeful approach to building up his tool collection. Not to mention in the part 2 of the six cylinder z900 video he fabricated just the right tool with proper extension out of a allen bolt to mount adjust carbs. Well that was the gist of what I saw maybe not quite but you get the idea. You can learn alot from Allen Millyard.

I also learned in part one of that z900 test ride video how to clean a sooty carbon fouled sparkplug which since I got myself a high zoot Bernzomatic brand map gas torch I will just have to give it a try some day! Seems better than the made in china sandblaster thingy I got of Ebay just for cleaning plugs.

My only critique about his bikes is one of two seperate things. They seem a bit heavy and wheelbarrowish kinda wide being what they are multi cylinders. Also since they are so wicked one off even if one of us were to obtain the unobtainable that they are most of us may never have the means to rebuild things like the crankshafts although I would imagine with money we all have the means to find someone that could at least cobble together another spares to keep one of these going. Which I would imagine in closing some devout crown of s3 lovers for example maybe up in arms to cannibalize a few motors in order to make a 4cyl. And on that note being a USofA citizen that I am I will say what the hey to that as I am always saddened to the ever increasing lack of interest most of my patriots have for the vintage two strokes...it amazes me how many of these get bought and flipped only to end up over in Europe and or Britain. They love our bike more than we do! 

[m in sc]

i very, very seriously looked at doing a 4 cyl S2 project. I've rebuilt my own crankshafts, to be honest, thats the easy part. the harder part is getting the crank cases back together , welded and keeping them straight, but still doable.   Im not taking anything away from mr millyard, to me one of his most impressive is the vtwin sl90.   

[RattlecanResto]

i very, very seriously looked at doing a 4 cyl S2 project. I've rebuilt my own crankshafts, to be honest, thats the easy part. the harder part is getting the crank cases back together , welded and keeping them straight, but still doable.   Im not taking anything away from mr millyard, to me one of his most impressive is the vtwin sl90.

That Honda vowing is my favorite one , but everything the guy does is pretty impressive.

[RDryan]

i very, very seriously looked at doing a 4 cyl S2 project. I've rebuilt my own crankshafts, to be honest, thats the easy part. the harder part is getting the crank cases back together , welded and keeping them straight, but still doable.   Im not taking anything away from mr millyard, to me one of his most impressive is the vtwin sl90.

That's interesting to hear you say that regarding your machinist background. Mine is much more limited but enough to be dangerous. Seriously I humbly admit to even if one has the right tools for the job and knows how to use them it seems like there is an awful lot of problem solving to overcome design issues. Not so much a machining issue but I was very impressed with his explaining cobbling together different parts of oil pumps, the plunger/ augers all being different from whatever s2, h1, h2 to get just the right amount of oil injection hence making an adequate smoke free fuel mixture. Just lots of thinking outside the box creativity but the videos are insightful enough that I imagine someone with patience and time could attempt to do one of these one off customs.

I definitely gotta check out the sl90! I wonder if there's  a forum where he's posting regularly?

[m in sc]

There -used- to be a time lapse video of him doing a motor, think he made a 5 cyl S1, at the london intl motorcycle show, all with hand tools and jigs, except the welding. did it in like 2 days and ran it the last day.  Ive only seen the vid once. very impessive.

[RDryan]

Yeah that is wicked impressive. I can't imagine keeping it all square like that to work. It's funny cause you listen to him and he makes it sound so easy...pretty much story telling and putting me to sleep.