Remember in our first paragraph when we asked Vaughan-Chaldy about performance and he told us help was on the way? Well, when those hop-up components had cleared production he was ready to wow us with beauty and brawn -- all in one package.
Baron Custom Accessories is known for wringing serious power out of Yamahas, and Road Star owners clamoring for more ponies than the feeble 53 stock horses will be pleasantly surprised by the new performance parts. Baron runs a Road Star drag bike in the Pro Star series, and After Midnight reaped the benefits of features developed and tested for the strip.
The bike was undressed again for engine builder Chaz Chastine to determine alignment of the new pistons, cams, heads, pushrods, lifters and carb. A new ported manifold hadn't cleared production yet, so Chastine modified the stock one. The engine also retained its stock crankshaft and rods, but it received new Generation Z Pistons within the stock bore cylinder, set at 10.5 to 1 compression. (These forged aluminum pistons -- with an aggressively reshaped crown design -- will replace all current pistons in the Baron catalog.)
New Zen Heads, ported (with reshaped intake and exhaust) and polished to Baron's specs, top the pistons. They also boast a stainless steel valve arrangement and camshafts operated by a set of Zen roller cams, lifters and adjustable pushrods. A Baron Big Air Kit with a high-flow air cleaner brings oxygen to a 45mm Mikuni carburetor, before it's sparked by a Dyna 3000 ignition. A chopped set of prototype Nasty Boy drag pipes expels exhaust gasses.
Once the components were in, the bike was placed on the dyno to obtain preliminary readings for the fuel and air mixture. Chastine rejetted the carb, tuned the needle a bit and voila -- 99.8 horses, right out of the box. Then he grinned, adjusted the carb some more and bam! The next reading indicated 102 horsepower with 106 foot-pounds of torque. A few more adjustments on the carburetor and exhaust produced numbers running consistently over 102 ( and as much as 106) horsepower from there on out -- a nearly 50-percent gain in power over stock. The dyno charts reveal a torque curve that jumped virtually straight up and stayed there until it hit the rev limiter. The horsepower curve was less extreme, but it produced a similarly vertical jump with a slight dip before skyrocketing again and peaking. After a lot of backslapping, R&D man Tim Rosse chuckled and hauled the bike in so he could refit the bodywork. "It's amazing how fast a bike can be put together when someone wants to be first to ride a 100-horsepower machine," said Baron. Luckily, that someone would be us.
Settling into the saddle and fondling the oversized grips, we got the impression this cruiser wasn't made for lightweights. A press on the starter button confirmed this, as small children in the neighborhood scattered for cover. Although the chopped pipes were painfully loud, the beefed-up engine promised us one hell of a ride. We were surprised at how manageably all that torque rolled out of the pulsing powerplant when we rolled on the throttle. The controls required a hefty pull, but once we acclimated, we could modulate inputs quite easily. The power came on smoothly, and we never did find its limits on the highway. After Midnight was simply not the out-of-control wild animal we expected, with a smooth roll-on, engaging pulse at idle and acres of torque waiting in the wings. She's no prima donna, however -- except for the racket, the bike is completely streetable with all the new Baron Speed Parts installed, and it runs on regular pump gas.
Vaughan-Chaldy says installation of this package -- which will be offered as a bolt-together kit -- should take about 15 hours with a professional mechanic, but we wouldn't recommend this as a first-time engine project. The parts will be available individually too, if owners simply want to add power accessories on their Road Stars. When the package becomes available in the spring, it'll be called the Stage 4 kit and will sell for $2875. It will include the Generation Z Pistons, an SR Ported Intake Manifold, Level III Heads, a Dyna 3000 ignition, Zen Roller Cams/Lifters/Pushrods, a 45mm Mikuni carb and stainless steel control cables. When you add approximately $600 for installation labor, you're looking at an expenditure of less than $3500 for a heckuva big power boost.
What most impresses us about After Midnight is that almost every one of its aftermarket parts, is or soon will be, available to regular Road Star owners. The Stage 4 kit, with its whopping power pop, can be had by anyone with 2900 clams. Vaughan-Chaldy's Speed Parts will now give Road Star owners the ability to increase output substantially, yet come away with a reliable street machine. And since these products have been tested under fire on the drag racing circuit, where the Baron has already bagged two world records with his Road Star, we'd say he means business.
For more articles on custom bikes and articles about how to customize and modify your motorcycle, see the Custom section of MotorcycleCruiser.com.