England’s Allen Millyard may not be a household name in America at the moment but we’re telling you that by the end of the year, basically everyone in the gearhead world will totally know who this dude is. Millyard’s skill is making things that never existed in the first place. Creating V8, V12, and massive V-twin engines from parts of and pieces of other stuff. In this video we see the step by step process of building his Kawasaki Z1 1600 V8 bike from about twenty years ago. Yes, the dude took two Kawasaki four cylinders and created a V8 out of them from scratch, in his little shed workshop. Not only did it work, it worked so well that it’s on display at the Barber Motorcycle Museum!
What’s really and truly fantastic about this to us is how basic the plan of attack is to get the engine right. It’s wood blocks, files, and just trying stuff to see if it will fit. Millyard is a genius, no doubt. This become really, really apparent when he shows us how he got eight rods on a crank designed to be slinging four in a normal day’s work. The magic does not end with just the hard parts. There’s the amazing way he modified the carbs, how he got all the stuff to fit, and how he made this look like a factory project.
In 2021, when someone does a project like this there’s a CNC machine involved somewhere and some advanced design software that gives some roadmap of how to fit slot a into tab b. Millyard engaged in some of the most intrinsic, beautiful, and hardcore hot rodding we have ever seen to make this all work.