OLD CAN BE NEW
Roland Sands Design ( RSD ) has excelled itself with El Camino .
In collaboration with Mike Tomas at Kiwi Indian , RSD has taken a 111 " Indian Thunder Stroke engine and introduced it to a gnarly old original 1946 Indian Chief frame . May and December are not always grounds for a successful relationship , but in the hands of Roland and his team , the two have managed to get on well .
An outstanding match in fact . They managed to get the Old ' un straightened out , and though it took a while ( a year ), the result is a most successful marriage ! " In order to keep growing , one has to move out of the comfort zone ," says Roland . " We know Indian Thunder Stroke engines , we ’ ve been building around them for years , but for this project we wanted to use as many stock vintage 1946-48 components as we could . It was a new type of challenge , not one of high performance and shorter lap times , but one of heritage and history . " We located an original fork and crashed , bent an original 1946 Chief frame from our good friend Mike at Kiwi Indian - a perfect donor for the project . " These vintage stock frames have castings for the neck and frame joints that were connected with straight steel tubes , tack-welded and brazed together , which meant we were able to grind off the tack welds , then heat up the joints to melt the brazing and easily disassemble the stock frame . " The modern engine is much larger , so we modified the stock castings a bit , to get the correct angles needed . Some of the stock joints wouldn ’ t work , due to the angle changes and different motor mount locations , so new chromoly versions were made and www . AMDchampionship . com AFTERMARKET MOTO DESIGN - FEBRUARY 2022 31