Just this week I finally made delivery to my pal Chris Ronan at RD2 of the custom XR1200. Chris is not always the easiest customer to work with because he has his ideas on how things should come together, but I’ve found we make a pretty good team.

First thing we needed to do was get rid of the fuel injection. We wanted a hot rod with zero dead spots. So, we went with an XR Carb conversion, ditched the 25lb harness and throttle bodies. We Started this prjoect with a brand new xr1200 which we stripped down to the rolling chassis form. We then removed all wiring harnesses and fuel injection system. Also, we removed the rocker box oil lines to make room for the new carb. The oil cooler is still fully functional.

It’s the custom, fully programable ignition and carb give the bike life. It’s way more responsive than the stock fuel injection with absolutely no flat spots at all. We also did some testing in the Texas heat to make sure the heads did’nt get too hot and I was a bit surprised to see that we never got near 190 degrees even on a day when it was 112 degrees in good old Wichita Falls, Texas.

Then, to get the look that Chris wanted, I knew he really liked some of the lines in my Rev2, so I game him some of those lines with a custom fabricated tank, tail, seat, exhaust, top tree, side mount and coil mount. Finally, I installed clip-ons with race controls.

When it was all said and done this bike has lost over 120 pounds since it came off the showroom floor as a stock XR1200. My goal was to simplify the bike and bring back a little of that attitude of the real harley XR race bikes. Looks like Ronan likes it…

Below are some pictures of the final product, starting with a side by side comparison with a stock Harley Davidson XR1200.