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Mickey and Rudy Haines also used E.C. built bikes in their mini cycle days. Birt's stuff was always fast.
EC Birt, was on the level of FMF and DG at the time, i remember a few other people using his stuff,, but there were a few other,,"Expert tuners". at the time, in fla. Steve Martin sr of Cycle Springs Yamaha,,, was one he did Steve Martin and Ronnie Tichoners bike among others,, they had these stickers, from a dry cleaning store,, that said "martinized" lol sounds funny but, he definatly knew his stuff and i got to ride Rocky Brunettes yz175 a few times, and it made me want a 250 lol, it was that fast.
but the last i heard about EC Birt was ,he went to work at a Suzuki dealer in ,, Dickson , Tn.,, then it went out of business, about 8-10 yrs ago.
Not sure of the years but a friend of mine used to race Karts and
bought some stuff from him.
He turned his business over to someone later when he retired.
The Shop
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Thanks for sharing.
Seems to be the in thing these days for people to butcher the FMF logo on the bottom of cobbed up cylinders and sell them on Ebay as FMF originals. Buyers beware, especially from the guy in Florida with multiple seller names.
As I remember Don did the pistons or probably farmed them out to be machined, so I didn't even see them much, not that they were hidden. A good guy to check with might be Dave Miller (Mano).
Occasionally someone sends me a sighting of a Haag Bros/ FMF cylinder, but hadn't heard of counterfeits.
Best regards, Robert Haag
Pit Row
Also, since this EC thread got brought to the top, for those that may have missed EC's passing...
http://www.vitalmx.com/forums/Moto-Related,20/EC-Birt-Keeps-Ya-Putten,1…
I have a EC Birt RM125 engine. I bought it from TX years back to use in my LOP bike while that motor was apart. Was told it was a local pro there's. It has the welded on fins of a WR3 and the strangest porting inside. It's on stock bore,,and has slots milled on cylinder wall leading up to main transfer port.This would increase the flow of it,and reduce some ring friction I suppose. Reed cage is 3 pedal,not Suzukis 2.(?)!. Engine does run very strong. I raced it that summer in 2000 against modern 125s flat tracking and finished 2nd.It proved itself against the 'new' stuff on the long straights where hp was king. I pulled te motor and it's shelved for now. Hate to wear out the stock bore and then have to bore it and loose the milled transfer slots he did.I later acquired another chassis to build around the engine with the PDI swingarm,and PDI pipe,metal tank too. Another project in waiting... EC never got the publicity of ones he mentored,,and moved on to Karting engines,,but he was a innovator.
I hope I didn't sound ungrateful (though I probably was......). Porting at FMF, starting as junior in HS was a dream job. Don paid us extremely well and we made our own hours. He was a great owner boss and always fun to work for and be around. I just meant I was more into the mx racer dream than being an engine builder. Probably took the racing too seriously and eventually lost the fun.
Blessings to him and his family. Godspeed!
I am not sure who did the work on my current '74 Honda CR125 cylinder but it has those milled transfers in it to run with the reed setup.
@rhaagusa - Years back I had a ported CR125 cylinder that had HAAG & HAAG engraved on the bottom of the lowest fin. I was a bit dubious if it was original or not. Did you ever engrave that on the cylinders you ported?
Some of the fakes I have seen coming from Sinister Cycles and his other Ebay names out of Florida had a very poorly scripted FMF logo on them and really shitty looking botch job porting. He sells other replica pieces like DG air boxes and poor quality fake FMF finned fork legs for the early CR125's. He will run his own auctions up and then offer you a second chance at his inflated price saying the original bidder didn't pay.
Just interested if Robert marked his cylinders that way.
It came from a guy out in Riverside in a deal with a DG swingarm and radial head.
early 70's Precision Cycle jersey. Rider unidentified, maybe Ron DeSoto
Post a reply to: EC Birt- Precision Cycle?