 The Custom Shop located in the heart of Illinois just happens to be one of the most popular automotive customizing shops in the mid-west. Their wild rides have gained them many cover shoots and full feature stories in most of the top car, truck, and auto stereo magazines. The have even had their paint work on the cover and pages of Easyrider... John and his father Vern Wargo owners of The Custom Shop decided to combine their automotive customizing talents with the 10 years knowledge they had learned from working on customers bikes. In 2003 Custom Shop Cycles was born and their first bike Holly Roller was on the drawing table... ) John and his crew started with a rigid Paramount frame as the foundation. The frame has a 6 inch backbone stretch and 2 inches added to the down tubes. The Paramount has a 42 degree neck rake and Accessories Unlimited triple trees were used for an additional 5 degrees of rake. A set of 12 inch over tubes were used to finish out the front end. John and the boys also welded in gussets to strengthen the frame for what was about to come... ) The CSC crew slid the popular 113ci S&S engine onto its mounts. Now this is where Johns need for speed and passion for uniqueness come into focus. John and his team of hellions fabed up a set of brackets and made all the necessary mods to accomodate a super charger. Not just any super charger John selected a Vortech T-Trim made for the LST Trans Am. A Crane Fireball single fire race ignition was used to produce the fire. To top off the need for speed a dual bottle NOS Fogger System was installed. Hookers 2 into 1 header was chosen to expel the used gases... ) The crew knew brute force was needed in the drive train department to deliver the potential horsepower to the 18 X 9.5 Weld Evo wrapped in 280mm of Metzler rubber. John selected a Bullshift 6 speed trans for the job. BDL's 3 inch belt drive was used to hook up the fire spiting monster to the 6sp. tranny. GMA's left side Brake/Pully system was used to finish up the final drive and rear braking issue... )
) With the power plant and drive train taken care of John with the help of Rich turned their attention to the sheet metal. While Rich used a set of 5 gallon flatside tanks to fab up a stretched single unit to house a set of digital gages from Nordskog under a custom flat dash. John was hard at work fabricating the front and rear fenders. He used a stock style Wide Glide front fender to mold and cut into the unique look he was after. Out back John started with a Fat Katz rear fender blank to create the one off look... ) White Bros Beach Bars were used to mount up a set of BDL hand controls. A set of Superior forward controls were mounted up. The headlight comes from Adjure and out back is a custom made led unit fabed up by Custom Shop Cycles. Up front a 21 inch Weld Evo wrapped in Metzler rubber rounds out the tire and wheel package... ) I saved the seat for last because it is another unique piece of the bike in itself. We all know the back breaking ride of a rigid. Most all of us has seen a air ride Softail. John is no stranger to installing air suspension. So he fabed up the brackets and installed two Firestone air bags to the seat. John also installed a onboard air compressor to adjust the ride at any time... ) Once the mock up was finished it was time for John to truly shine and do what he loves most "Paint". John sprayed the bike PPG bright blue. The next step was laying down the PPG silver bladed graphics. John then used his air brushing talents to give the graphics a 3D effect. A good amount of PPG clearcoat was then applied to cover all the art work. The next day the final stages of the custom paint job were performed wet sanding an buffing... ) John would like to give props to his team Rich, Nathan, and Barry and a special thanks to Matt Kemp, and Ryan Chapman for their hard work and help with the bike... I will be covering a lot of Custom Shop Cycles work. Ive known John and his dad for a lot of years and if John puts as much creativity into the bikes they build as he has custom cars and trucks OCC best step to the side. Check out the One Piece Steel Body Pro Street they just completed in the Destruction Zone. I will be doing a feature on it real soon... |
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