Sturm Engineering's
Ohio TC Hot Rods
Johnson
Engineering
100 Blake Road
Denver, IA 50622
(319)984-9298
(319)984-9299 fax
info@twistgear.net
photos courtesy John Sturm
TwistGear Twin Cammer Terrorizes Ohio Hot Rodders!
Russ Sturm likes things that go really fast in a quiet way. And he likes these things to say Harley on the side and adios at the light. That's why this Ohio electrical engineer by trade swears by TwistGear as a must have ingredient for his top of the line tune ups. And that's because Russ likes torque, lots and lots of really sticky torque, the kind that'll rip an oak tree out by the roots without breaking a sweat.
TwistGear's uniquely designed to take full advantage of Harley's built in long stroke torque characteristics, unlike short stroke, small displacement powerplants that need lots and lots of gears to get them started and keep them rolling, at the expense of a lot of foot flapping and horsepower loss through gear drag.
Russ' Sturm Engineering is located a few miles northeast of Columbus, Ohio, in the small community of Pataskala about midway between Jersey and Oakland. This is where he builds world class bikes out of a small, non-descript garage that, like the fabled Lockheed Skunk Works, lets it's work do the talking. Known for a long list of innovative performance products, Sturm devotes the majority of his time these days to squeezing every last ounce of horsepower from the Twin Cam genre of Big Twins.
A big part of Sturm Engineering's magic is the headwork applied in the by appointment only high performance headquarters. "I Work On Bikes Like They Were My Own..."
To get there, he uses a variety of tricks, some well known, some top secret. For instance, he likes a 95-inch conversion for his killer Road Kings because there's no external giveaway to what lurks beneath, but this big bore swap is anything but conventional. Russ waves his mojo magic over the back room milling machine and then starts cutting the heads the way he wants them. And that's a big reason why, when he heads to the strip or the dyno, his bikes leave the competition scratching their heads and wondering how much more money they're going to have to spend to catch up.
"With TwistGear, A 95 Incher Performs Like A 110 Incher."
Russ took one of his TwistGeared Wide Glides down to Daytona this past March just to see what his version of Ohio hot rodding could do on a Florida strip. The answer was an 11.17 et with a 118 mph top end! Hello? Not too shabby for a fully streetable Softail that's ridden daily, and that before the swap could only muster an 11.53/115. And there are some well known names that got twisted at the Cabbage Patch, but that's a story for a different day.
Another one of his recent adventures is a full tilt boogie Springer TC, sporting a to-the-max 139-cubic inch mill that kicks out 149-plus horsepower. This is the monster he hauled over to Columbus for the Easyriders Dyno Drags at the bike show last February. And the numbers? How about a 10.06 et, with a 127-mph top end blast! Had the compensator, or clutch hub, or crankshaft held together long enough, who know's what kind of results could have been obtained. One thing is sure, though. And that's that the Twisted tranny just kept right on humming, with nary a dent or a whimper.
Sturm likes to point out that one of the little known performance aspects unique to TwistGear is that there's 50% less backlash in 1st through 4th, a significant factor in the overall system approach to speed, reliability, comfort, and smoothness over comparable five and six speeds.
Stay Tuned
We'll keep track of Russ and his fantastic Buckeye street cleaners in the months ahead - next up, the Norwalk drags - as he continues to create the kind of performance based value many promise but few can deliver.
Contact info:
Appointment Only
Russ Sturm
Sturm Engineering
13492 Morse Rd.
Jersey Township
Pataskala, OH 43062
(740) 927-9125
SportGear™ and TwistGear® are trademarks of Johnson Engineering, Inc. Buell™, Dyna™, and Sportster™ are trademarks of the Harley-Davidson Motor Company. No affiliation with the Harley-Davidson Motor Company is implied or inferred.
