A New Chi-Town Hustler...On Two Wheels

Words and photos by Jeff Burk

Anything with rear wheel drive, a supercharger, and nitro in the tank gets the interest of the DRO staff. We get even more interested when the machine is a fuel bike because we are all of the opinion that only a totally insane or twisted individual would ride one of these beasties. So when we heard about one of these machines that had a history tied to Austin Coil and the old Chi-Town Hustler crew, we had to find it. When we did finally get a look at the Top Fuel bike we had been hearing about, we found out that it was worth the effort. Just the sight of the bike, which so far has been fired but has not made a pass, left us drooling and slack-jawed at the prospect of it making a pass in anger. Then we realized that what we were looking at was a Top Fuel bike powered by one fourth of a John Force Austin Coil-tuned nitro burning hemi.

Corvin Latus, part of the old Chi-Town Hustler gang of south Chicago racers and innovators, built this one-of-a-kind, truly mind-blowing Top Fuel bike with some help from his Chi-Town Hustler friends Austin Coil, Wayne Minnick and Steve Farkonus. Latus, who obviously has too much time on his hands, evidently didn't get the need for nitro out of his system by the time the Chi-town deal went away. So the guy that Austin Coil credits with fabricating and building a lot of parts for the Hustler, turned his considerable talents and imagination to building what DRO considers to be the ultimate Top Fuel bike.

Instead of utilizing the conventional two-cylinder, four-stroke Harley or a Japanese designed four-cylinder, four-stroke engine which usually power a nitro bike, Latus took the path less traveled. He built his own two-cylinder, four-stroke engine that is based upon the design of the most famous and successful engine in drag racing...the venerable Chrysler Hemi. The only real difference between Latus's Hemi and the one found in John Force's funny cars is the number of cylinders; Corvin's engine has two holes John's has eight.

Once Latus decided to build this two-wheel nitro burner he told Coil of his plans and asked if he had some "junk" he could use for the project. Coil went to the aluminum "scrap heap," found an irrepairable, blown-up KB block with two undamaged front cylinders. Brad Anderson got wind of the project and sent him a cylinder head that had two good combustion chambers.

The block is pretty state-of-the-art with the camshaft location being raised in the block for crank clearance. All the stuff you see on the front of a KB fuel motor such as gear drive, oil pump, etc. are on the block. The valve train and camshaft all have the same specs that are used in current Top Fuel engines and the crankshaft is just like what is used in most fuel motors, just not as long.

After Latus had machined and fitted the heads and block to make basically one-fourth of an Austin Coil fuel motor, he then bolted on the rest of the parts which include a pair of mags, a 990 Enderle pump and barrel valve which feeds fuel to the 125 cubic inch Hemi through the same port, down, and hat nozzle set-up found on any modern fuel motor.