Everyone knows that if you want to go fast, you get a turbo, right? Nitrous is for wannabes, ballers on a budget who aren't willing to man up and build a serious, turbocharged street machine, correct? There's no question that a turbo bike can huff up some serious power, but a pro-built turbo bike is also going to cost you some serious scratch. I've had the good fortune of owning a few turbo bikes in recent years, and the price tag for the turbo mods on my last Velocity Racing-built Hayabusa totaled $7,845. What, I wondered, would be the result if I took the budget it would take to build a top-shelf turbo bike and instead spent it on a pro-built, top-line nitrous motor? Would the results, horsepower-wise and top-speed wise, even be close to comparable? If you spent enough money in the right places, could nitrous oxide shed its ghetto reputation and compete on equal footing with the sophistication of a well-built turbo bike? Sounds like the perfect excuse for another full-bore project bike build-up!
Our first phone call was to Lee Shierts, the owner of Lee's Performance Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, and one of the most successful Suzuki tuners in the nation. We asked if he was up to the challenge of building us a no-holds-barred nitrous Hayabusa mill that was fast enough to take on a turbo bike and reliable enough to ride on the street every day, for a total retail price of less than $7845. The only budgetary exceptions would be the aftermarket pipe and Power Commander, items we assumed the typical performance junkie would already have on-hand before starting a full-on performance project. Any other engine mods would have to comply with the magic under-$8000 number, including parts and labor. To know Shierts is to know a man who never backs down from a performance challenge. Soon enough Shierts was on board and Project "Big Shot" was off and running.
Engine
Ask any of the dozens of championship-winning drag racers and roadracers he's worked with across the country over the past two decades, and you'll find that Lee Shierts never disappoints when it comes to delivering horsepower, and this project would prove to be no exception. There are plenty of engine builders out there who make all sorts of crazy claims regarding their tuning ability, but few of them have the confidence to regularly race their creations in a public forum and allow the rest of the world to see their dyno numbers, e.t.s and top speeds. With Shierts there aren't any secrets (alright, "not many" secrets-more on that in a bit!). So it was with complete confidence that we gave Shierts a nearly $8000 budget and told him to lean on the 'Busa motor as hard as he could without spoiling reliability. We had visions of 300hp on nitrous for a 100 percent streetable bike. At first we were not sure it could be done, but, as usual, Shierts held up his end of the bargain.
As mentioned earlier, the Hayabusa we delivered to Lee's Performance Center was already outfitted with an aftermarket exhaust and a Dynojet tunable ignition module. For the exhaust we selected the latest TiForce "Sumo" exhaust from Orient Express. In our experience TiForce systems make great power (see our exhaust shootout in of this issue for proof) and the Sumo system comes standard with a threaded bung for the Dynojet Wideband Commander (WBC) we planned to install. Unlike the standard Power Commander, Dynojet's WBC (which we sourced through Schnitz Racing) is able to monitor and datalog the air-fuel ratio and throttle position sensor while riding the bike. This makes tuning the bike off-site (at the drag strip, for example) much easier than before because you can monitor the air-fuel ratio while on the bike (or after a pass on a laptop) without needing to return to a dyno. This allows you to make precise adjustments to keep the air-fuel ratio in the safe range while out in the field.