The Puma V-8

With the kind permission of Ian King feast your eyes on where my lottery would go.

I think I would be right in saying that when jig borer Pete Davies was made redundant he set up his one man business, Puma Engineering, and has never looked back. Most of Peter's work for drag racing involves bottom ends for Top Fuel bikes, and the odd frame. However in the early 90's he decided to build something a bit different for himself to ride.

All photos courtesy King Racing.

USING two Yamaha FJ1200 top ends on a one off crankcase with longer stroke gives 2600cc. Simple! well when you have the skill to turn a 200lb block of special steel into a a 34lb crankshaft, yes. Apparently done on a normal centre lathe too. I've made very small multiple throw cranks myself, so can appreciate what a monumental task it is to tackle what Pete does and make it stay together in a Fuel Bike.

50 hours later Pete was surrounded by swarf and ready to get on with the crankcases. Pete spent two weeks producing the patterns for his cases and lots more time to reach what you can see on the right, another milestone in this amazing man's prolific career.

I remember reading that Brian Johnson had chosen the FJ cylinder head, when building his Fuel bike 'Imperial Wizard', because of it's inherent strength. As the FJ was conceived as a tourer, weight reduction was not high on Yamaha's priorities and the walls of the casting are pretty hefty.
Pete also pointed out that FJ engine bits are comparatively cheap, a good point when you may be destroying said bits quite often!

The stud spacing of the FJ top end allows for overboring, though Pete kept the stock bore and increased the stroke to 70mm. At right an early photo of the engine installed in the frame. Built by Peter of course.

Some time ago Ian King purchased the bike as an unfinished project, and so began the time consuming task of finishing the monster.

The engine already contained lots of goodies like Wiseco pistons, Superod conrods and Megacycle cams. To this was added a Mallory Supermag, upside down forks and 6 piston callipers etc etc. Beautiful plates were made to hold the engine and transmission in place, fuel pump added and primary drive finished.

However a change at work meant that Ian didn't have the time to finish the job and Ian bought the Brachtvogels 'Quarter Scorcher' 4 cylinder top fueler. Work on the bike is continuing and I can't wait to hear this one running.

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