Long before custom-built motorcycles flourished as a market trend, many & brands employed one-off designs as promotional platforms for their & products. In the DCR-017's case, DNA Filters takes it one innovative & step further by designing the whole project around its main produce, the & air filter.&

Founded in 2002 and based in & the outskirts of Athens, Greece, DNA Filters has built itself a strong & brand name by designing and producing air filters for motorcycles, cars, & ATVs and RCs, and by supporting racing teams up to world championship & level. Its palmarès includes a World Endurance Championship with the & French GMT94 Yamaha team, as well as two reddot awards for its filters – & the latest concerning the brand new Leather Top series. & &

Both coming from a & strongly motorcycle-biased background, the company's founder and CEO, & Dino Nikolaidis and his son Marios, DNA Motorsport Engineer, conceived & the idea of a café racer custom build during the EICMA 2016. After witnessing the huge wave of customs filling the Italian floor, they decided to design their own one-off bike. & &

"I love & older motorcycles; in fact, I was in the market for a new bike to move & around the city, and I ended up buying a Honda CX500 turbo," Marios told & New Atlas. & &

"After & seeing all these retro styled motorcycles at the show last year, we & instinctively decided to design our first-ever custom. You know it had & to be a café racer." & &

The DCR017 started its life & as a KTM RC8R superbike. It was bought last December and broken down to & its bare parts, as the project took off with a May 2017 deadline and & plans to unveil it at this year's EICMA show. & &

After & removing all the parts of the steel trellis frame that were not needed, & such as the supports for fitting KTM's plastic costumes, it was powder & coated in black charcoal and finished with a sand blasting containing & metal particles. & &

Then, the & team moved on to fabricate the DCR's signature parts, the fuel tank, & rear cowl and underseat unit. With a manufacturing facility fully & stocked with CNC machines at their disposal and vast experience in 3D & CAD design, the Nikolaidis family team set off to build the motorcycle's & main body from expensive and hard to find aerospace-grade aluminum.

The fuel tank was fabricated & after 400 hours of CNC machining of a 146-kg (322-lb) billet block of & 5083 H112 aluminum alloy. The end result is a tank styled after the & two-stroke racers of the 1970s, holding 11 l (2.9 gal) of fuel and & weighing just 3.6 kg (7.9 lb).

The & DCR-017 isn't only meant to look nice, but it has to be fast and light, & hence the choice of an annealed and stress-relieved alloy that allows & for the tank's walls to be as thin as 2 mm. It was finished with a clear & anodizing to protect it from oxidation, leaving the tool paths in plain & view. & &

In order to & distinguish the object of DNA's main business, the design incorporates a & central hollow section to house the air filter. It sits on a bottom & plate that secures it on the frame tubes and incorporates the fuel pump & housing. & &

In similar fashion, the tail & and underseat units were machined from two solid blocks of the same 5083 & H112 alloy, initially weighing 60 kg (132.3 lb) and 24 kg (53 lb) each.

A & very interesting feature of the fuel tank is its tiny cap, machined & from 6062 T651 aluminum alloy and which can be opened only with its own & D-key, tailor-made by DNA from Delrin polymer. This key also doubles as & the motorcycle's main switch, turning on the engine's electrical system & wirelessly using NFC (Near Field Communication) connectivity technology.DNA apparently dedicated a lot of passion to its project and, instead of & fitting off-the-shelf parts on the bike, fabricated most of them & in-house from several types of aluminum alloys. The long list includes & the sub frame, footpegs and rearsets, steering damper brackets, & instrument base, switches, headlight frame, both fenders, supports for & the oil and water cooler, and the harness box. Even several bolts were & created in-house, such as the ones supporting the external transparent & tube that acts as fuel indicator.

As for the V-twin & engine, it was tuned to World Superbike specs with KTM's official race & kit and a custom mapping system developed by DNA, and was fitted with a & special Akrapovic Evo 4 titanium exhaust system specifically tailored & for the DCR-017. & &

The air & filter itself is DNA's 2012 reddot-winning Stage 3 MK3 Air Box Kit for & the KTM 990 series, modified for the specific bike's specs and adorned & with a large carved DNA logo on the right side – the one and only & manifestation of the company's insignia on the whole motorcycle. & &

For the most & part, the bike runs on the original KTM brake and suspension kit, with & the exception of the rear shock absorber which is another special part, & custom-made by Hyperpro for this project. The fact that the Nikolaidis & family business includes the Akrapovic and Hyperpro dealership in Greece & certainly made things a bit easier in acquiring one-off gear for this & unique café racer. & &

Once the DCR-017 was & completed, it was mounted on a Dynojet for the final verdict, which & amounts to 186 hp (138.7 kW) and 133 Nm (98 lb-ft). This power output & may not sound extreme in a world where the average superbike declares at & least 200 hp (149 kW) in stock form, but on a motorcycle whose total & wet weight measures just 162 kg, it makes for an intriguing & power-to-weight ratio and promises a thrilling ride. & &

"We have & removed all the electronic safety systems, there's no ABS, no traction & control, so you can imagine that this is quite hard to ride. Few people & have ridden it, and all of them came back with a huge smile on their & face. These reactions prompted us to name the bike as the Brain Eraser. & It's what it does; it erases the concept you had in your mind about fast & motorcycles," says Marios Nikolaidis.

So, what does the future hold for the Brain Eraser? Will it ever become anything more than a showbike? & &

"Look, so & far many things have happened quite accidentally. We started designing & air filters as a hobby, a side project if you like, but we couldn't have & imagined back then that it would grow to become our main business. & Similarly, the DCR-017 was decided in the spur of the moment, it was & more the realization of a dream that was sitting in the back of our & minds, rather than a planned move," Dino Nikolaidis told New Atlas. & &

"Actually, & so far two people have asked us to build them a DCR-017. I explained to & them that we have no such plans, that it would be extremely expensive, & the amount of work, the parts, I hadn't really given it much thought. I & don't think that it makes any sense for us to start building custom & bikes, yet it's very flattering to have people asking us to make one for & them regardless of price tag. And it's still just the second day after & the unveiling," added Marios. & &

Take a look at & the DCR-017 in action, filmed in Elefsina, Greece just before it was & crated and shipped to Milan, Italy for its formal unveiling at the EICMA & 2017. & &

Source: DNA Filters | Newatlas

#Bike #Moto #Caferacer #KTM #Custom