Greetings from Mile Hi Pentons. Have a few photos to share of the Silver Bullet. One of the shots shows how fat the Proto pipe really is and the tapered headpipe section. Could not go with std 250cc head so went with 81 cyl and head, can't wait to get her out and do final jetting! Adios, Tom Brosius
http://cone.viawest.net/users/dkwracer/Silver/
Another spectacular Penton from mile high Pentons [:p]. wow LT, its gonna be a shame to get it dirty !!
BTW is that an automatic :D
Raymond
Down East Pentons
Nice bike Tom
Nice to see a few of the Protopipes showing up. I was begining to think that I had the only Protopipe left on planet earth. Here is a little piece of trivia... The Pipe that is on your bike was actually modeled after the Pipe on my bike. I new Jim the owner of Protopipe and when the MC5 came out, He wanted to make an after market Pipe to fit it. He enlisted my help and used my bike to do the initial mock up of the Pipe. Yes you got it I have the first Pipe ever built for the MC5 250. To be fair the only thing I did was give Jim some feed back on how the pipe worked, I have no idea if he changed it because of what I had said or not. I am pretty sure that Protopipe was one of the first pipe builders to use the tapered head pipe. He had great success with a few tapered pipes before that but it was really labor intensive and so he came up with the idea to make them in two pieces He hade a set of dyes made and bought a large press and they made a bunch of pieces that could be used on what ever pipe they were building. Jim was a small time Pipe builder and was overshadowed by some of the big time builders from L.A. None the less he produced some very fine pipes Partially with the help of a world famous tuner by the name of Erv Kanamoto. I left racing shortly after the pipe was made and I never found out what happen to Jim and his company Protopipe.
Thom Green,Still crazy after all these years!
76' 250 MC5 (orginal owner)
75' GS400 (project bike)
72'sixday (project bike)
Thom,
What relationship did Jim have with Irv Kanamoto? I worked with Irv when he tuned for Freddie Spencer and was just wondering? Thanks for the post.
Ron Carbaugh
Sometimes, out of the blue, comes a new idea. When I first saw this pipe, I was told of it's history. The owner, whom I can't remember his name, tho was from PAC-NW, had an association with either Toyota or Honda (box label). In anycase, I kept it. What has happened is due to the inspiration of two fellow Poggers, G.Ellis and Gary Sanders (Super Piner) whom I admire for their friendship and creativity.
If you have a dream and it comes true, then there is no fault. I thank xxx for being alive today and being a member of the Penton Owners Group, and I am very proud and pleased the see the quality of posts continue. Mine are different, but are they really?
The best laid, happen in your shop. I am a lucky SOB.............Ray, an automatic? No way Jose.....Tom Brosius [:p]
Great looking bke Tom! Personally, I like going out on a limb to build something slightly different, that's not too far off the beaten path. For instance; Why am I building a 77 MC5 Penton into a drag bike?
1) I am not altering anyting that can not be returned to stock easily.
2) I started with a bare frame only (Thanks Donny), so I didn't disfigure a complete bike.
3) How better to get accurate test results for performance gains for products like...Cirle F pipes, Lectron Carbs, PVL ignitions. Etc.
We can all benefit from actual performance data comparison even better so than the statement like. My bike ran better with, or I won my class, or similar things that may be attributed to a good day, or I was pumped because of this or that new product that blew away the competition!
I dreamed of builing a Penton drag bike back in 1978 and even drew a picture of it and now I am finally following through with my dream!
Keep up the good work Tom, and fellow Penton/KTM enthusiasts. Thanks for your time... Mike
Michael R. Winter
1974 250 Harescrambler
1975 250 HS Project
1977 250 MC5 Project
1978 250 MX6
1979 250 KTM Project
1980 250 MX KTM