Name: Q&A with Harley Davidson Factory Racing
Uploaded: 2025-02-17T21:16:09.978Z
Duration: 1 h 6 min 4 s
Description: Q&A with Harley Davidson Factory Racing

Transcript for "Q&A with Harley Davidson Factory Racing": Alright. Hello, everyone. Welcome. We are gonna wait a couple of minutes just to let some people hop on. But here today, we'll be hosting a panel with Harley Davidson Factory Racing and then Tyler Jordal who is their account manager here at Portal Lab. So we'll wait just a couple of minutes here for some more people to join, and then we'll go ahead and get started. I did note here in the chat, if you have questions throughout the presentation, absolutely feel free to send those in the chat. That way, we can go ahead and answer them at the end of the panel in the order in which they came in. So type those questions in. We'll pull them up at the end and make sure that we get those questions answered. Answered. Perfect. So from here, guys, we'll go ahead and get started. Again, welcome for, our panel with Carly panel with Harley Davidson, a Q and A talking about the factory racing in a recent product that we, help support them on. I'll run through the next slide here today. I'll be hosting. My name is Lily Jurdi. I am with Proto Labs managing our events program. So I'll be running through the questions that we have and then again at the end I'll pull up all of those, live questions from you guys, the audience in the chat so that our team can help support. So moving on here, we'll run quickly through introductions. So Tyler, if you wanna go ahead and start and introduce yourself. Yeah. Hi. Tyler Jordahl, with Proto Labs. Been working here for about six and a half years and, been working directly with Harley Davidson and the race team here for about two and a half of those years and it's been quite an exciting time. Awesome. Welcome. Carl. Hi. I'm Carl Vandervoort. I'm the Harley Davidson factory racing technical lead, really in charge of kinda driving our team's technical development priorities and our operational execution once we get to, get to the racetrack. So about fifteen years in the automotive industry, mechanical engineering background, health positions ranging from design engineering to technical sales. I've been with Harley for about six years and the race team since 2022. Awesome. Lots of good expertise here today then for sure. Scott? Scott Heine, staff designer with Harley Davidson Factory Racing. I've been with Harley Davidson for twenty years. I've been designing motorcycle parts for twenty six years. I've been with the race team since 2020 when we first started. Awesome. Welcome. So as you guys can see, we've got a great crew here today. We're gonna walk through, some questions with the group. And then, again, at the end, we'll open up for any questions. If at any point you have a question for somebody in particular, if you wanna just include their name in the question that way we know who direct the question to at the end that would be lovely. We'll go ahead and jump right into the questions here. So, we actually are gonna play a video talking here about the King of the Beggars Racing series. So I'm gonna go ahead and play that video and then we'll hop into the questions. So I'm sharing my screen here. This racing effort is personal to a lot of people here at the motor company. We wanted to come out swinging and show that that performance group within Harley Davidson was capable of building the best bike in the world. To see how far it's grown over the past few seasons. 18 races, nine rounds in 2024. We're drawing a lot of fans and we're no longer a sideshow. We're part of the big show. Daytona this year was nothing short of memorable. Mission kick the baggers twenty twenty four season. And to see Kyle coming out of this game and just powering back. I saw a window and maybe a little bit of dirt, drove my big bagger through it. He came away with two victories, which is incredible. To the line he goes, and Kyle Wyman ends up doing the double. That was a mental race. We left Daytona with James Ospoli setting an all time record in top speed in a touring motorcycle. 186 miles an hour. Think about that on a bagger. Let's go to MotoGP. Let's go to Kona. This year, we got to be a support series with MotoGP on the world stage, and they wanted baggers. Awesome. We got you baggers. Here we have this very American in your face, large motorcycle racing. The reception was overwhelmingly positive. It blew everybody's mind. It was a great show. There was tons of passing, tons of action. I'd say some of the best racing that people saw that weekend happened when the baggers were on the track. Wyman on the gas, and to the line they come. And Wyman takes victory, and Ruspoli holding on to third. Road America is always a special round for us. It's right here in Harley Davidson's backyard. And then Willie g shows up. Willie signed Kyle Saddlebag for good luck, sent him out, and brought home the win. They're coming up the top of the hill. They go side by side. And to the line, it's Kyle Wyman. I wanna give a big shout out to the Davidson family, Willie g out here today. Laguna Seca treated Harley Davidson very well this year. Not only set track records, but also locked out the podium all weekend. I'd encourage anybody who hasn't seen these motorcycles out there ripping around to come to the racetrack and see what we're doing, see what your motorcycle is capable of. I try to imagine what the founders would think of what we're doing today. Racing, touring motorcycles at speeds over a 80 miles per hour. Yeah. I think they'd be all for it. Super awesome video shared with us by the Harley Davidson factory racing team. So we at least got a little bit of a snippet into what we'll be discussing today. But, Carl, really interested in understanding a little bit more about the factory racing team and then overall the King of the Baguers Racing Series. Yeah. So I've seen that video probably a hundred times, and I still still gets my blood pumping. So the the King of the Bagger's racing series started out in 2020, as an exhibition race at the famed Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey, California. Driven in large part by privateers in the growing performance bagger scene and suppliers in kind of that robust performance aftermarket. So that event generated so much buzz that MotoAmerica elected to stand up a formal championship series centered around American v twin baggers, the very next year in 2021. So at that point, Harley's team consisted of a volunteer effort made up of engineers from Harley's Screaming Eagle product development team working, you know, nights and weekends to to bring home that first official championship, behind factory rider Kyle Wyman. So since then, the series, has really grown to be the premier class, I'd say, with some of the biggest names in the paddock, running nine rounds or 18 races in 2024, including that appearance alongside MotoGP at Circuit Of The Americas Last April. And then this upcoming '25 season, we're gonna have seven rounds with 14 races. And, really, I think, you know, it stands to be kind of the most competitive season we've seen yet. Awesome. So traveling around then to multiple different cities to do these races? Yeah. That's right. We're go we go coast to coast, you know, Monterey to New Jersey, Texas to, until last year up to to Minnesota. So we're really crisscrossing the entire nation. Awesome. We love to see it. That's great. We'll move on here. So, with this, obviously, we're talking about specific components. So we're interested in understanding the model of bike that you're riding and why that bike in particular is unique to the racing world. Sure. So our bikes start life as production road glide touring motorcycles. So it's it's quite unique, because we're taking bikes that were originally created for, you know, this Grand American Touring And upfitting them with a whole suite of superbike and custom design components, to make them suitable for the race track. All without rider aids, like traction control that are present in the other classes. So it's really, you know, up to the rider, to to kinda manage getting that power to the ground, which is really unique for our class. So, you know, these things were never really meant to do what they're doing. And looking back at those first few years, I think we've made believers and fans out of a lot of people, you know, who are naysayers early on. I will say probably the first two seasons at least, you know, the baggers were looked at something of a of a sideshow, and and a lot of that has changed. So, you know, every time we see a lot of new faces at these racetracks that might not have even considered attending events like this just a couple years ago. So it's really evolved quite a bit. Yeah. That's awesome. And speaking of that evolution, obviously, that bike has had to evolve since the series began. Can you talk to us a little bit about that? Sure. Yeah. Kind of as I mentioned earlier, this class has its roots in in the performance bagger aftermarket. So I'd say most of those first bikes used primarily bolt on performance components that were already available in the aftermarket. We're to a point now where these 620 pound Goliaths are putting up lap times that would consistently qualify us at or near the front row of the Super Sport class, with bikes, you know, half the weight. So, you know, consistent improvements in power, handling, lean angle, durability, you know, 186 miles an hour at Daytona last year. And these guys are flying around the racetrack dragging knees and elbows on the curbing now. So, you know, the evolution in design and performance of these bikes, you know, really is really is astonishing. Absolutely. I can imagine, especially as we advance with technologies and manufacturing too, just seeing how that helps support these different iterations and components and changes that we're making on the bike. That's awesome. That being said, kind of leading into this next question, how does the feedback process work with your team? And then how do you guys also work to provide solutions when doing a race and seeing how things perform and what happens? What does that process We're to the point now where, you know, tenths of a second in lap times can make all the difference in the world. So, you know, we are very, I think, very fortunate to have, you know, astute riders who are well adept at kind of evaluating the bikes and providing that detailed feedback on on where improvements can be made. And so you couple that with, you know, really the full resources of of this building at the motor company, You know, things like detailed simulation models, analytical software, a full suite of instrumentation on the bikes, and, you know, a product development organization here with over a hundred and twenty years of motorcycle design experience. You know, we have a very active queue of of development opportunities. And, you know, racing really is that ideal test bed to kinda take all that feedback, distill it down, and then, you know, design, test, and iterate, you know, really extremely fast in a matter of often days or weeks between rounds or between between events. So it's it's kinda taking that feedback really directly from the riders, but also with the technology that we've installed on these bikes And then understanding, okay, where are the needs to be made? And kind of building out that list and putting stuff on on Scott's plate. You know? Hey, Scott. We need designs, so we need updates, you know, in these particular areas. And then, you know, working, you know, with you guys in large part to get, you know, to get those parts turned around quick so that we can get something tested and and learn at the racetrack. Awesome. Yeah. So truly a team effort, and we're super honored to be able to be a part of that effort. Leading into our next question here. So Tyler, you've been working with the team for a few years now. How is digital manufacturing uniquely equipped to help support these different iterations and this quick turn iteration that the Harley Davidson factory racing team is working on? Yeah. So hey, Tyler here from the Proto Labs side. And yeah, people do often ask, you know, what does digital manufacturing even mean? And I would say the largest advantage of of how this whole system works is really on the front end, which was our our quoting software where customers interact with us. So just to kind of take you through, the process, like when an engineer needs a part made, they upload their CAD model to our platform. Our core software is actually directly tied to all the machinery that we use to make the part, whether it's some machine part, printed part, injection molding, sheet metal. So we take a CAD and the system does all that tool pathing, pricing, scheduling, all that good stuff, upfront before you even press go, cut any metal, mold any plastic, whatever that is. Right? We're digitally manufacturing your part. With three d printing, for example, this is instantaneous. You can get, like, an instant quote sometimes. With molding and machining, it's within a few hours. And once you get a quote back, not only are you gonna get that exact pricing and lead time that you're looking for, you're also gonna get design for manufacturability feedback or DFM on your part. So this is what allows engineers to iterate through multiple revisions within a single week, oftentimes within a single day if we can do some, you know, quick three d printing iterations, as opposed to the traditional route which used to take a heck of a lot longer. So once you're ready to order and press that go button, Proto Labs offers incredibly fast lead times which allow us to deliver parts to customers, oftentimes in next day situations. So Some so for sure coming in clutch here when working with the Harley Davidson factory racing team when we're trying to get things out the door quickly, especially in between those races and between events to help make sure that we're getting you guys what you need. Awesome. So digging in a little bit more into specific parts. Scott, this question is for you. Can you tell us a little bit more about the CNC ship skid and the original goal for designing this part? Yeah. We were coming to a points championship end of the season. We were in the points lead and we had a meeting Monday morning and I was like, okay, rain predicted for the forecast for the our final race. So one one of the big issues we had is anytime the bikes go down on the left side, the shifter gets wrecked and they basically can't ride the bike anymore. So it was a quick meeting on how can we protect the shift just mumbling on the left side of the lake. I think we had a meeting that morning. And by the afternoon, I had the design done, sent it over to Proto Labs, and they shipped parts right to our my hotel right before the race. So we got parts I believe it was Thursday morning. I had parts on the bike, and they were testing on Friday morning. Very quick turnaround. This guard just basically covers the whole shift assembly. So when the bike go down, it skids across the the guard and not doesn't hurt the shift assembly at all. So they can pick the bike back up and keep on going. Awesome. That's crazy, to have all of that rain come in last minute. So obviously, protection is very important. What were some other critical design considerations when creating the CNC part? Obviously, lean angle. We don't wanna interfere with a lean angle. So as the vice is starting to go into the corners, we wanna make sure there's clearance there, but the part is gonna hit the asphalt. Also clearance the shifter, pressed in bearings, all kinds of making sure the geometry moves smoothly. The last thing we want is the, rider to miss the shift and then he goes off track just because, the shifter is stuck somewhere. Yeah. Awesome. Super exciting. Super exciting that we could get that done for you. I'm sure it was a little bit of stress when you saw that forecast come in. Oh, yeah. Awesome. Tyler, moving back to you. So we obviously helped partner with the team on this. How does Proto Labs connect to the manufacturing floor to ensure that the part meets specifications while ensuring that delivery in forty eight hours, quick turn situation scenarios where we need that part really fast? How are we connecting with that manufacturing floor? Yeah, I mean, and it's not uncommon that we find ourselves in these situations, with our customers who need parts. Yesterday is kind of the running joke. And like I mentioned before, like our quoting platform where customers interact and upload their CAD with us is directly tied to our manufacturing floor. Literally like 50 feet away from it in some cases. So, being able to confirm that a part is manufacturable and within the state of tolerances and the correct material that the customer needs all on the front end before ever pressing go is extremely advantageous. So like, you know, like in the scenario where you need parts in a day, before you press go, you press, you know, you select the expedited lead time on your order. And once you press order, usually within, and this is for real, within fifteen to twenty minutes, we could have that raw material getting loaded onto a mill and start making your part within fifteen minutes of each order on that thing. It's super fast. Once parts are finished, they'll go through a standard QC process and, load it onto a truck that evening to go wherever they gotta go. And oftentimes, you know, going over to Wisconsin but, in, you know, cases like this they're going to wherever the team is. Awesome. So we talked a little bit about the urgency of getting the part updated. But, Scott, can you talk a little bit about how that part actually did perform in those rainy conditions on that race weekend? Yeah. So as you can see from the picture, the bike did go down in the rain. Luckily, the shift mechanism operated as it should, so they were able to pick the bike back up and keep going in the race. The, aluminum piece took the brunt of the impact, and you can see it ground away quite a bit, but, didn't grind grind away enough to hurt the shift assembly. Awesome. So definitely by all. Yes. What what would have happened in this scenario had we not added in that extra part? The, shifter would have been ruined, and they wouldn't have been able to continue racing at all. Crazy. Yeah. And we were at a point, I mean, in the season, right, where every point matters. So we had a mantra last year, 36 for 36. We had two riders in 18 races. And, you know, you can't win if you don't finish the race. Right? So something like this was absolutely critical for us, even if we weren't gonna win the race at that point, to still get the bike back up and running to, you know, to get some points on the board and kind of on to the next race then. Totally. Awesome. Coming back to Scott. So, the three d printing exhaust system was created to achieve greater lean angles. So why is this lean angle so vital in a race? I think you talked a little bit about it when we were talking about that CNC piece, but can you elaborate a little bit more here? Sure. Lean angle is critical to a motorcycle in that the more lean angle you have, the faster you can grow on the corners. So every degree of lean angle helps. You can go, you know, a half degree is could be a tenth of second in the corner. So the more lean angle we have, the the faster we can go. Also, you don't want anything touching when they're leaning the bike so fast. If they touch on the ground with that hard part, it could, disrupt the suspension of the bike and they could, high side the bike. So with the exhaust system, we wanted to bring that thing up and tight as as we could with the rider position. The footpegs were right there. The brake pedal's right there, and then we have lean angle right there. We wanted to try and bring that up as tight as we could to make sure we had proper lean angle and still rider, accessibility. Awesome. Building off of that, trying to figure out a little bit more on your decision making process and why you guys chose Proto Labs direct metal laser sintering DMLS technology to help support some of these products. So with the muffler system, you know, that exhaust has to be run tight against the bike and you couldn't do that with just a generic tube. So I made some free form surfacing to get that shape to fit in the parameters we had with lean angle and foot peg position. So it was a organic shape. Couldn't really manufacture that other than with some kind of three d printing. So and then when we wanna test it, we have to do, you know, on, engine dyno. Obviously, a plastic part is not gonna hold up, so we went to a stainless steel first to do engine dyno work to verify power numbers, and then we went to a titanium for weight savings. Awesome. That's great. So we talked about a couple of different, processes and materials. What were some of the key design considerations during the prototyping phase for these parts? Obviously, to keep our power numbers up, you know, any kind of time you're touching the exhaust, that's a chance that you could reduce power, you could gain power. Exhaust is a very unique situation where it's very critical to the performance of the engine. Also, you know, your rear brake pedals right there and your foot placement is right there. So to be able to squeeze everything in that that small space, it took a lot of organic shapes to get it to fit in there properly. Awesome. So great working with additive manufacturing and for sure for those unique geometries. Tyler, this one's for you. How are product developers leveraging metal three d printing for automotive applications? Yeah. So DMLS's application in the automotive industry, from what we've noticed, actually kinda mirrors, the same way that the aerospace industry is taking advantage of it. For three main reasons. The first is, as Scott probably knows this very well, like weight reduction and strength. You know, it enables you to create parts that are optimized for weight reduction but maintaining structural integrity, which is vital in both, you know, automotive and aerospace where decreasing vehicle weight is gonna improve things like fuel efficiency and performance. The other one is complex geometries and organic geometries. Like Scott mentioned, the geometry of this muffler system had to be a little bit organic to fit in really tight with the rest of the engine. And with DMLS, the sky's kind of the limit when it comes to what you can do with metal geometries. Things that were, previously impossible via like subtractive manufacturing technology like CNC, now you can just print them from the ground up. It's kinda fun. And third, just kinda overall cost efficiency. So like with the ability to create complex geometries, we can be creative in how we reduce the weight of components using only the exact amount of material needed as opposed to subtractive manufacturing like CNC machining. So and I'm sure these guys would agree at some point all three of these factors are likely taken into consideration while they're developing these super high performance bikes. For sure. And that does lead into our next question here. Digging a little bit deeper into how three d printing, specifically DMLS metal three d printing, is supporting some of this design freedom. So, Scott, can you talk a little bit about how this design freedom that's offered through DMLS is changing your development process or part development? Yeah. It allows, more flexibility. We can make different shapes to fit in better places, lighter materials. It creates a wide range of design freedom. You know, I'm not stuck with conventional manufacturing processes. Yeah. Yeah. I'll just add to that too. I mean, you know, particularly in our in our case, you know, we need maybe eight or 10 or 12 of this type of part. So it really it doesn't make any sense for us to to kinda tool up this component in a in a more traditional, you know, in a more traditional manufacturing method just not only from a time standpoint, but cost. You know, we don't have the the volume behind it necessarily. So from a, you know, from a low volume prototyping aspect, you know, there really is no better option, I think, for us. For sure. Yeah. Moving back to Tyler. So, you have been with Proto Labs for quite some time now. You obviously work with a multitude of customers. How in particular has the Harley Davidson factory racing team been unique in how they leverage Proto Labs capabilities for success on their projects? Yeah, absolutely. I mean first of all, these guys are awesome. You guys have been great to work with. It's it's great to have and kind of key to have such an engaged customer team who's easy to communicate, who embraces the offering the way that this team has. I think part of the reason this partnership has made so much sense is, Harley uses Proto Labs exactly the way it's intended to be used. Right? Like fast iteration, accessing multiple technologies all under one roof, just in time part delivery in some cases. And it's it's not all just one z two z machine parts, although there's a lot of that that's necessary. But for example, you know, we had been, machining some really high use, high quantity use plastic parts for Scott. And, during a meeting you brought up how easy would it just to be like to mold these. And with Proto Labs, we can just take the cat we had been using to machine them, drop them in for an injection molding quote, get the design feedback, get the pricing feedback, and I think we did this during a meeting. It's we can do it so quickly. And And ended up getting to a point where it made sense to make some molds, and now we store a few molds over in Southern Minnesota where Scott can just, with a click of a button, order, you know, a batch of parts whenever he needs them. So, really just overall, it's been great to see, Scott and the rest of the team just use Proto Labs to its full extent truly and, just really excited to see what's next. Totally. So I think this question can be answered by all three of you if we're being honest. How does manufacturing with a partner like Proto Labs help fuel innovation with your specific projects that you're working on? Really interested in hearing from all of you. I can start with it. Was that one? It's the fast turnaround. You know, I can work on a design. I can get it to a point where I think that we're ready to go. I submitted over to ProLabs, and we have parts in a couple days so we can fit on the bike and see if we wanna test them. Yeah. It's like that. I mean, just just how quickly we're able to to iterate. I mean, it's one thing to to look at in CAD, but I think anyone that runs a CAD machine knows that, you know, the the three d doesn't always match reality. Right? So to get a hard part, put it on a bike, be able to test it, and actually run it. You know, it's not like a traditional three d print. You know, you can actually run it on the bike and and really shake it down. That's invaluable to us just at the, you know, speed at which we need to, you know, to get stick to get things on track. And something something that Scott does really well that I kind of some advice I give to everyone I work with is to use Proto Labs' quoting system, as a design tool. You know, like as you if just as you're starting from scratch and you're looking for that, that DFM, it truly is. It's a free tool. If you can give us your CAD, we'll give you an analysis of that part whether it's for injection molding, or you know, three d printing. We'll tell you exactly, you know, hey, this if you could change this up, it's gonna mold better. It's gonna be easier to know the tool for this. And I think they've done a really good job truly using it as a design tool as they as they innovate and, go through iterations. Yeah. We did a chain slider, injection mold chain slider, and I submitted that up to the system and it was telling me exactly where all the gating is gonna be and drafting is to be. So I made a couple of iterations just based on, the feedback I was getting from the software. So cool. Well, we love to hear these stories. We're so thankful for you guys for being willing to share them with our audience and with us. Super excited to partner with you. Digging in a little bit more to the future, both Scott and Carl, what are you guys most excited about for the twenty twenty five king of the bagger season? Yeah. I'm I'm just excited to get back out on track. I mean, we fell just short last year of of winning the title back, to Harley Davidson. So, you know, I mentioned earlier, it's gonna be probably the most competitive season yet. You know, we've seen several guys hop over from from the superbikes now to the baggers, really making it that premier class. And, you know, just just being able to go out there and and compete and, you know, put all of our our hard efforts on design and test onto the racetrack and, you know, just bring back the title, to Harley Davidson. We've made some quite a few updates to the bike this year, and I'm excited to see what that's gonna do to our lap times. Every year we go out, we are a second two seconds faster than last year. So I can't wait to see what lap times we throw out on this year. Absolutely. Tyler, any thoughts on the Proto Labs then? I'm just hoping to get out to at least one of those races and see it in action again. It was fun last time I got to see it. Nothing like it. For sure. Well, we'll be anxiously waiting. All the results will be following along with you guys. Now it's time for us to jump into some q and a. So I'm gonna be pulling up some audience questions into the chat, and if you guys wouldn't mind just answering those, I'll pull them up in the order in which they came in. We can run through them, and then we should be good to go here. So just give me one moment while I tee them up. Alright. So looking into the specific parts on the bike, how many of them on the racing bikes are OEM components? The Go ahead, Scott. The frame is production. The engine cases are production. The bodywork has to represent the shape of the OE bodywork. Fuel pump has to be OE fuel pump. What am I missing, Carl? Yeah. Gear set has to be, as as production, at least the the ratios. You know, Scott mentioned the frame, engine cases, we can't touch. Engine mount, we can't touch really. So the I guess the foundational, you know, the foundation of the chassis really is is OE parts. And then we do use, you know, even in the engine and the cases, you know, a fair bit of of the OE, you know, the OE, parts right off the bike. So it might be more than you expect just by looking at the bike. You know, certainly at its core, it is a road glide. Awesome. Pulling in a question from Jose. Looking into the plastic materials, so what plastic materials are currently used in the Harley Davidson factory racing components? We do a lot of ABS. Carbon fibers are probably where we're changing all the bodywork to. Chain sliders, I believe those are all ABS. We do have a chain roller that's UHM. It's a long one. Yes. Yeah. Nylon. We do some SLS printed nylon. I think that's about it. Question from James. So I believe this is asking twin baggers that refer to the dual saddlebags on the bike. Yeah, so v twin, v twin engine, and then bagger, yeah, refers to to the saddlebag. So that's, you know, that often people ask what's in them bags. Right? That's a catchphrase that got coined, as we started this series up. But, yeah, refers to to the saddlebags and the fact that it is a a touring motorcycle at its core. Awesome. From David, how do you balance weight versus durability when creating these parts? Yeah. So we wanna get the bike as light as possible. Our our rule is that we can't be any lighter than six twenty pounds. So we use a lot of fancy material, a lot of aluminum, titanium where we can. Yeah. We take a lot of weight out of the original bike. Yeah. I think I saw I think I saw a question maybe we'll get to it too about topology optimization. So we we do do a fair bit of that just to reduce, you know, as much material as as we can. So, I mentioned a lot of the the simulation and analytical software. You know, we're constantly looking at ways to keep the weight down, you know, as we continue to evolve the motorcycle and actually add, you know, subsystems to the bike. So, combination of, yeah, analytical tools, material selection, optimizing the design, you know, just keep that weight down. Awesome. Here we kinda covered this a little bit in the OEM question, but Dale's looking to understand a little bit more about the limit of modifications that can be made over the stock motorcycle. So we are we are displacement limited on the engine by by the rules. So we run the Screaming Eagle one thirty one, powertrain at its core. We are you know, there are some modifications to that engine that are open to us. Suspension, by and large, is an open parameter for us. You know, physical shape of the or of the bike, Scott mentioned, we are you know, we we do have to conform in principle to, to the aesthetics, and we we're given ranges of which we can you know, the bodywork has to fit within. But, you know, powertrain, honestly, is fairly limited to us. Suspension is definitely an open parameter, and then whatever we can do to get that weight down. Awesome. So we talked a little bit about this in the presentation. I'm sure that this question came in before we walked through it. But, Pete is looking to understand what three d printed parts are on the bike during the race and what materials we're working with for those three d printed parts. So the side intake, it's a shroud on the intake. That's a SLS piece. It's out of nylon. The pommel, that's the piece on the fuel tank that the riders, grab onto with their knees to be able to lean off the bike. That's an SLS piece. That's also nylon. We were doing chain sliders out of nylon for a while, SLS printed. We changed to injection molded, so that helps us there. You know, we were doing the exhaust system three d printed. What else, Carling? You see anything? It's a pretty good rundown. Couple, you know, a couple little bits and pieces, are also SLSed, within, like, the breather system, for example. But, yeah, pretty much anything that can withstand the heat, we SLS. But then I think the big one is, was the the exhaust collector on the titanium. Awesome. Josiah is asking what process you guys used to get from a 900 pound machine to a 650 pound machine? Take a lot of parts that we don't need. Like, you know, all the electronics, the radio, the speakers, the saddlebags, you know, the the hinges and the locks for the saddlebag, that's seven pounds per saddlebag just by removing the hinges and locks. Wheels, you know, we go for lightweight wheel. You know, you're going from a 50 pound o e wheel to, like, a 15 pound aftermarket wheel. Carbon fiber, front to rear. You know, all the body works carbon fiber except for really the tank. There's a lot a lot of weight to save there too. Alright. Another one from Jose. Are you exploring advanced, composites or reinforcing or reinforced thermoplastics to optimize strength to weight ratio? Yeah. I'd say so. I mean, like I mentioned, carbon fiber tip to tail, for for one. You know, on the thermoplastic side, I think where we can, glass filled nylon on parts that are gonna see some kind of load. You know, we tried to to pull as much, like Scott said, out of the pike as possible, a lot of that, original plastic bodywork or, you know, bits and pieces came came off. So at this point, it's mostly, yeah, carbon and and aluminum where we can and titanium. Awesome. Thank you. Michael's wondering where you guys see the possibility of improvements within the engine moving forward. Yeah. This is one that never really stops. You know, we're constantly looking for ways to to kinda ring out as much as we can, out of the motor. You know, obviously balancing that that with durability. Right? You can make as much power as you want, but if you're not, you know, you can't win if you don't finish the race. Right? So, early on in particular, that was that was probably one of our bigger design challenges. You know, how do we make this, you know, aftermarket to Harley Davidson motor engine, something that can go, you know, 86 miles an hour around Daytona, probably the most grueling, track on our on our calendar. So, you know, it's it's always a work in progress. We always got something cooking. But short of that, you know, I can't divulge too many secrets. For sure. Another one from Jose here. How do you guys decide whether to use injection molding, CNC machining, or three d printing for these specific components? I'd say injection molding for any time we're using parts that, get used, used up by service parts like, chain sliders, chain rollers. Those take a beating during the race, so we change those out quite frequently. That's when we went to injection molding. CNC machining, that's probably what we use mostly is, you know, try and weight savings, changing parts from steel to aluminum. And then three three d printing is just parts that we don't think we'd change a whole lot. You know, it's it doesn't pay to do a tool for these parts. Yeah. For sure. From Simon Pierre, modified stock bikes have a lot of parts that need revisions. How do you interact with Proto Labs on reworked parts? Rework parts. I guess every time I upload a new model, you know, they have the archiving system so I can go and archive the old revisions and then I can just upload upload new revisions. Now the software that ProLabs has pretty much handles it for me. Yeah. I'm trying to think of something to say to support that, but that's basically that's basically it. It's pretty straightforward. So thanks, guys. Another one from Michael. What technologies did you use to improve the possible shifting issue that you guys mentioned? Yeah. So we went beginning in the beginning of the the racing program, we were having a lot of issues with shifting. Riders would miss shifts and they go off track. We have used gone to press fits, more bearings, stronger components, trying to get that natural frequency out of the system. We were at a point where the shift arm is so far away from the shift lever and the transmission that we were seeing some natural frequency issues that was hindering our quick shifter. So it's been a lot of iterations. Yeah. I'll say the the stock motorcycle has a fairly fairly complicated, shift linkage. So probably one of the biggest changes that we made early on was just going to a direct, you know, directly actuating the the shift lever at the transmission. I think that was a huge one. And, you know, it's one of those for sure that that we couldn't have done without using processes like these, you know, to get to get that whole bracket pack packed in and iterated and tested, you know, something that, you know, we're maintaining decent rider feel at the shift lever, then also being able to, like I say, iterate that and get that really dialed in, to help, you know, just improve shift quality. Awesome. Carl here is wondering about the shift protector. So did that require any plating? And then also looking into the material, if that is stainless steel or what material that's made out of. That is, sixty sixty one aluminum. No plating on it. Completely raw. Yeah. I'll say most of our most of our build stuff is is completely raw. You know, our mechanics do take a fair bit of pride, and as they refresh the bikes between rounds and between events, you know, it's it's kind of a tedious process to get everything, you know, super shiny again. But, you know, for us, the plating probably doesn't really well, it doesn't really pay just based on how fast we go through parts and, you know, how often we're actually rebuilding these bikes from from the ground up. And so, Tyler, this one is for you. The quick turn milling tolerance of plus or minus point zero zero five is good. Looking to understand if there's any chance of a higher tolerance milling service. Yeah. Good question. And yeah, that's a good point. The quick turn milling tolerance is, yeah, plus or minus five thou. If you need tighter tolerances with Proto Labs, we have a few different options. I think Scott's used both of them. We have what we call a high requirement shop. It's domestic shop, just not twenty minutes down the road from me here in Minnesota. More of a traditional CNC setup shop where we can achieve, tolerances as low as plus or minus two thou. We also have a network of manufacturing partners, where the sky is kind of the limit, where we could reach out and, get some really, really high requirement stuff done, you know, down to that one thou if if you're really looking for it. So a little bit of everything just depends on what your timeline looks like. Got a few different lanes. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you. Guys from the Harley Davidson factory racing team, this one's for you. What parts have been designed to date that, riders will see for themselves as regular riders? Any cool parts that will be available in 2025 that came out of the racing learnings, anything that you guys are able to share with that? Yeah. It's an exciting I mean, it's an exciting, opportunity. I will say when we launched the CVOST road guide in 2024, That has a a track mode. And, actually, the throttle progressivity in that bike is a direct copy paste from what Kyle is running on the race bikes to date. So we're constantly looking for ways to take what we're developing and one way or another work that into, you know, into OE models. Now a lot of the stuff, obviously, that we're doing is not street legal. And, you know, a lot of that is is what gives us our competitive advantage on the track. So a lot of that stuff is not, you know, gonna be available to to the general public. But, yeah, I'll say we're we're always looking for, you know, kind of the next next level on how we get more people involved in the series, involved in in baggers, on Harley Davidson's, you know, get them on track. So I'll say more to come there, but at this point, you know, we're we're looking at it. Awesome. Thanks, girl. From Heather, talking again about that shifter, have you guys ever thought about hard anodizing that? Because the shifter ride rides on bearings. We didn't really hard anodize it. We do have other parts that we had hard anodize, all the wheel spacers and stuff that we get a hard stack on. We hard anodize just because it's more of a durability thing at that point with the case hardening. Awesome. Question from Greg here. These parts are really great, but how will these trick parts transfer to the Screaming Eagles parts catalog? Yeah. Again, this is one that we, we get asked just about every time we're out out at the race track. How do I get that? How do I get that? You know, we'll see. I'll just say that. Alright, Jose. Looking to understand if you guys leverage multiple suppliers for rapid production or if you rely on, in house manufacturing for plastics. I wonder if that might be for proto labs here, Tyler. It could be. I guess I'll answer for Proto Labs. Yeah, Proto Labs does everything in house. So we own all of our own mills that make our molds, we own all our own injection molding presses, all of our own three d printing machinery, and sheet metal machinery. So, yeah, it's, it's all in house. It's pretty incredible to see. We welcome anyone to come take a tour if you're ever in town. Alright. Karl, what do you guys have in house manufacturing for plastics? Our Tomahawk facility does plastics, but we don't use any of that on a race bike. We do have a machine shop in house in our product development center that does, some of our parts and but we utilize portal apps quite a bit for a lot of the parts. So thank you. Lucas is asking, given the use of additive manufacturing, how do you account for the complexity of simulating the failure points for given components? Carl, you wanna take it? Yeah. I mean, I guess it it really depends on on the application. Right? I mean, we do have a fairly, mature, I'll say, analysis and simulation organization here. So, you know, like those thermoplastics, they often have complex properties that are very difficult to to model. We do still do a fair bit of that modeling. But proof's really in the pudding. Right? So we you know, again, it's it's the ability to kinda get those parts on a bike quick or in in the labs down here quick and do some focused testing to really understand, okay, did, you know, did the part meet what we saw on analysis? And if not, you know, how do we iterate that? And then it's kinda that rinse and repeat, you know, design cycle. Awesome. Guys, we do have about ten minutes left. So we've got quite a few questions in the queue. So I will ask if we just, don't submit any more questions so that we can handle getting through all of the rest that are in the queue here. Moving on quickly to Noah. Are you guys using topology optimization to determine geometry for weight reduction and to retain strength? Yes. On our swing arm, that was a big first step we did in the, swing arm design. Basically, we give a over overall envelope size of, you know, can't violate these areas, and then, we optimize it, and then we, make it manufacturable. That was the big one we did on the swim. So, Tyler, this one's for you from Terry. What is the bed size of our metal three d printer and then what is that maximum size of parts that we can print? And how does that cost compare to CNC machining? Yeah. So we have I guess I'll call it two types of printers where we're, printing metal. What we're just calling like a normal resolution, DMLS printer is 9.6 by 9.6 by 13 inches. So about that, I'll call it. And we also have two x line printers. So our printing large format metal in aluminum and Inconel. I hope I'm saying I think I'm I think I got that. Yeah. Inconel and aluminum and, that's printing 31 by 15 by 19 inch, envelope for three d metal parts. So pretty dang big. And as far as how DMLS compares to CNC pricing, it really is part dependent. You know, when we're doing things like those complex geometries that are otherwise unattainable through CNC, it it can be worth it. Obviously, it's it's still a newer technology compared to traditional CNC, so, in some cases a direct comparison, the MLS will be more expensive. But as the technology advances, we're starting to see people actually use it for like low volume production in in some cases. So, it's it's ever changing. Kinda tough to do an apples to apples comparison, but that's that's probably what I would say. Yeah. Great great way to utilize our quoting platform too to compare costs with specific geometries Yes. And three d printing. Yeah. Awesome. For the Harley team, pulling up a new question here from Dale. What design software do you guys use? Example would be solid SolidWorks. We use Creole. Pretty straightforward. Love it. From Dale, how many exhaust parts do you guys make? Oh, well, that's a hard question because we started out designing our own exhaust system. So we designed the full exhaust system. And then depending on who's manufacturing it, they throw in their pieces that are unique to them. So we but we control the design of the entire exhaust system basically from analysis to you know handing it off for production. Cool. Tyler, back to you from Aaron. Does Proto Labs build the tooling for injection molded parts or is that outsourced? Yep. Proto Labs does all of our own tooling. So, just to take a quick journey, whenever you buy an injection molding tool with Proto Labs, it's manufactured or I guess machined, right here in Plymouth, Minnesota. We'll make sample parts after we build that mold, send them to you within fifteen days or less, you approve them, and we send it down to our production facility in Rosemount where we store your mold for free and mold with it whenever you tell us to. Yep, all in house. So Scott and Carl, what are your thoughts on pit race? Miss it being on the calendar. Yeah. There are several, I think, tracks on the circuit that that we are not a part of. You know, pit. The ridge is another one. They're pretty cool at tracks, but really just not not suitable for the baggers at the speeds that we run and the tires that we run and just the physical size of the bikes. You know, a lot of them, it it boils down to kind of a safety concern with the bikes being what they are. So, yeah, I think we'd love to to kinda complete the whole circuit with the rest of MotoAmerica, but at this point, it's just not something that, you know, that that we could probably do safely. Awesome. From Matthew, not sure how much we can get into this, but just looking to understand who you feel your biggest competitor is, I believe, when you're racing. And I guess what are those areas that you guys are competitive on? Well, from from our standpoint, there's there's really two manufacturers in the class, Harley Davidson and, and Indian motorcycles. So, you know, we it it's a it's it's a competition. That that's for sure. You know, I think our biggest competitive advantage honestly is just the resources that we have here at Harley Davidson, the, you know, the support that we have from the organization, the team that we have working on the bikes, you know, and just being kind of the longest, you know, continuously operating motorcycle company in in The US, I think, you know, really is a feather in our cap. Absolutely. From Jamie, when or will we see another street glide in the class now that the design has changed? So that's a tough one because the street glide is not as aero as the road glide. So going 186 miles an hour, the, with the fairing attached on the street glide, it makes not so stable. So most bikes go to the Rogue Glide just before the, better handling. Mhmm. Alright. From Michael, what were the adjustment parameters for the gears and transmission? So, actually, by the rules, we have to use the or I have to start with the homologated gear set, meaning we can't actually change, the ratios in the gearbox. So from a gearing standpoint, you know, we can change, secondary drive ratios and then really play with kinda shifter feel and the whole shifter mechanism, both of which we do regularly. So that's one of those that's kinda fixed for us, the the transmission itself, short of, you know, durability enhancements. But, you know, like I say, from a ratios standpoint, we are locked in by the rules. And so another one from Matthew. From your riders, do you guys see any complaints or feedback on comfort with the mid to rear controls of the bike? So the mid controls were, or the rear controls were actually positioned per the rider. So we've had the rider came in and basically set up the bike where he wants it. We move the foot pegs to that position. We've had multiple riders come in over the years and 90% of them like them where they are. We really haven't had to change rear controls at all. Yeah. And that's kind of a cool one too. I mean, we did bake the the foot supports right into the side covers like the primary cover on the left side. You know, we're able to machine a clevis rate into that cover. And so that allowed us to really get it, the first year or two where we kinda wanted it in conjunction with, you know, tweaks to the seat and handlebars and the whole rest of the kind of the rider triangle. So, yeah, so far so good on controls position. So from men, what weight are you guys at right now if you can share and how close do you think you can get to that 620 pound limit? So 620 pounds is our goal. We haven't weighed the bikes this year, but we believe we're right at that six twenty pound dry, so without fuel. If we're not quite there, we have some some things in our pocket we can do to get us that 600 clean pound. So I have another one from Aaron. Are the carbon fiber parts compression molded? There's a mix of of processes depending on the part and and who we're getting them from. You know, some are autoclave, some are infusion layup, some are, you know, just wet layup. It's it's kind of a mix depending on the part and how structural it needs to be, you know, the weight targets and so forth. So I'd say we probably have a mix of just about every kind of process, throughout the bike. Some for me. And I think, Scott, you touched on this just a bit, but, wondering if you guys have your own CNC in house as well or if you outsource everything to Proto Glass? We do have our own CNC machine shop in house. But, you know, they're limited to they're supporting the entire product development center. So we can't get them all the time. We use them when we can, and then we outsource to Proto Labs. So if you'd have to put a ratio, I'd I'd have to say, Proto Labs probably does 75% of our parts, and our machine shop does the other 25. Awesome. Looks like we're ending in, a couple seconds here. It might cut us off. If it does, thank you all for joining. We really appreciate. I think it should let us stay on here. So if you guys can still hear me, we just got a couple more questions if you guys are okay to run through those. Sure. Perfect. Awesome. Sorry for cutting you off there. I was, like, getting a buzzer with time and wanted to make sure I cut that out. Okay. Are we still live, Lily? I think so. Yeah. Oh, alright. We should be, yeah, we should be live. I don't know if somebody wants to write in the comments if we're live. Mhmm. I see there's still 75 people on those, so we should have. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. So we'll run through these questions real quick here, from Jose again. What challenges do motorcyclists currently face when opening or closing their garage? How often do riders need to open the garage without getting off the bike? Not sure, if this is something that you guys have input on. So Harley did have a garage door opener system that would work off the light high beam. So basically, you flick your high beam and it would open the garage door. It'd be connected to your garage door system. So, for the races, yeah, we we we, catch the bikes when they come in, so there's no garages. We do go sit in a garage at Daytona, but that the doors are wide open and we just push the bikes in. Awesome. Awesome. Thanks. From Ryan, do you guys have a budget for custom parts? How do you redesign if a part is over budget? Yeah. I mean, we definitely operate within a budget. Certainly like any any race organization, I don't say that we have necessarily budget targets for each individual part. So it's kind of a case by case basis. But, you know, that's one of the advantages I think, of the quoting tool as well is that we can understand, you know, hey. Are there trade offs or are there, you know, changes that we can make to help reduce part cost and maintain, you know, the performance that we're looking for. So, you know, it's kind of a, like I say, a case by case basis, that we're looking at. But, yeah, certainly certainly have a budget to work within. Some from Jose. Can we integrate a proximity sensor or NFC so the door opens automatically when the motorcycle approaches? Sounds like a long term opportunity. Awesome. Okay. Jose, another comment here. Are there ways to make the remote control more accessible? Again, I think we talked a little bit about how these are components that are being taken off of the bikes for the races to recently. So I don't know necessarily if this is applicable for, conversation today, but interesting thoughts. I'm sure that you guys have opinions on those too. Yeah. So we do have a grass shore, button that works off the high beam of the the bike. So kind of the same way he's thinking right there. Yeah. Awesome. From Ryan, are your manufacturing partners ISO of 9,001 or iTar slash EAR compliant? Tyler, this is for you. Yeah. So our manufacturing partners are all 9,001. We also have some that are ISO thirteen four eighty five, which Proto Labs legacy or factory doesn't have. So that's actually a pretty big bonus to our network. As far as ITAR goes, we do have a the proper channels in place to quote ITAR jobs. I just need to talk to your representative and, we can make that happen. So answer is yes. So from Joseph, I am going to butcher the pronunciation. I've seen Beau beer, maybe. Beau beer. Yeah. Have a have a supervise engine replaced between sessions to make a race. How quickly do you think your mechanics could have a bigger turnaround in the same staggered around the same manner? So I happen to not only design bikes, but I work as a assistant mechanic. We do do an engine swap. We we have done it as fast as an hour and a half. Wow. Okay. Okay. Two more questions, guys, and then we can wrap it. Greg is wondering if you're hiring. Yes. Yes. We are. I suppose, yeah. The company is always hiring. I suppose it depends on your area of expertise. I'll say that. Check the websites. Awesome. And then last one from Dale here. Any work or progress towards the Superhooligan race? So, settlement is our partner for Super Hooligan. They won the championship last year. We're we'll continue to work with settlement to develop new parts and see what we can come up with. Well, thank you guys so much for joining and walking us through all this. That was a lot of rapid fire q and a that you did at the end here, so we appreciate it. And audience, we appreciate all of your questions. Thanks for choosing to spend an hour with us on a Monday. Please let us know if you have any questions. You can reach out to Proto Labs directly. But this recording will be on our website in a couple of weeks here. We'll have it on our on demand webinar, platform through our website. So if you guys have any questions, again, email Proto Labs. We really appreciate it. Scott, Carl, and Tyler, all of you, for hopping on and and joining this session. So thanks so much. Thanks, everyone. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks, guys. Have a great rest of your day. Bye.