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The Shop
The bikes EC was hired by the factories to build and wrench for me included... Maico... Zundapp... Tyran... Carabela... CZ... and Rickman.... Don Emlers Pendapp motor was an exact copy of my White Works Rickman ... there is a picture of it posted as well as my 250 Rickman in the last photo
A little history... The Year is 1969...... I was 13 yrs old at the time... My dad took my 360 Maico to EC to get the motor built and a pipe built... EC Birt was a genius with a 2 stroke motor... at this point after EC would design the engine, it was then taken to Papa’s house who’s garage was the machine shop and papa did all the machine work for EC..
Once the machine work was done, we would head back to Precision Cycle where the shop mechanics included Donny Emler and Jim MacDonald.. Donny raced his 100 Suzuki at the time and it was on this bike that Donny learned from EC how to make a motor fast and hand shape cones and build Expansion Chambers ... Side Story on FMF.. in 1969 .. Donny’s Suzuki was called an FMF ( a Five Minute Flyer) because that’s how long Donny’s bikes at this point would last before hang grenading.... Donny then learned to keep the compression around 230 lbs and not 250 and after a year of learning, his bikes would last a full moto... The name FMF then evolved and meant ( Fast Mother F#%ker)..
When EC and I moved to Florida to join Team Maico In 1974 and Donny started his own new shop.. to be commercial... FMF became ( The Flying Machine Factory)..
In conclusion... my 1969 Maico 360... after EC built the motor and pipe and put a Mikuni Carburetor on it.. my bike never broke down... I was the top Dist 37 open Novice and then Amateur that year and turned Expert in 1970 on this bike
LW
LW
In 1973 I bought a Hodaka Wombat (enduro) and being 16, I wanted to race it. My go-to shop was in Rockville MD and run by a man named Tom Wilmon who to me was much more tech sophisticated than other Hodie mechanics I had come across. His shop, Sun Cycles, was also a Zundapp shop/dealer and Tom had at some point reached out to EC and becomes friends with him. Tom later ported my Hodie carving out and extra "victory (transfer) port" which I believe was suggested to him by EC. In conjunction with the victory port Tom also got expansion chamber specs which was constructed and installed on the bike. I was very happy with how it ran after those mods but as we all remember, at the time, Elsinores dominated. I sold the bike probably in 1975 but I really with I still had the specs for that expansion chamber as I bet it would have worked well on the 77 Wombat I bought a couple years later. The pipe was sent to Tom as a collection of cones and he welded it up to fit as a downpipe on the 73 Wombat.
If anyone has access to the tech info of that time or a suggestion for a street and USFS legal pipe for the 77 /03 Wombat, I would love to hear from you. I have a completely intact 77 Wombat which was running the last time I tried (more than a few years ago) but could probably be restored without unreasonable expense. My 25 yo son wants to ride and I really would be happier if he learned off road on something like my Wombat.
I also have a considerable collection of old DB magazines including the issue with the EC Birt Rickman.
Pit Row
Post a reply to: EC Birt- Precision Cycle?