RIT Students Create Customized Harley-Davidson ´Tiger Choppers´

These Harley motorcycles are one sweet ride.

A group of engineering majors at Rochester Institute of Technology created a custom motorcycle conversion kit to transform two Harley-Davidson 883C Sportster motorcycles into “custom choppers.” The kit could be produced and sold commercially since no similar product exists, team members say.

Working with Santa Cruz Harley-Davidson, a Harley dealership in California that donated the two Sportster motorcycles, a multidisciplinary student design team customized the two-wheelers from end-to-end—making modifications to the bikes’ front ends, headlights, handlebars, mirrors, seats, fenders, paint, exhaust systems, electronics, brake lights, rear ends and more. The result: customized “Tiger choppers”—named for their tiger theme, including paint scheme and wheel design emulating a tiger claw. (“Chopper” is the term used to describe a radically customized motorcycle—with certain components “chopped off”—and a tiger is RIT’s school mascot.)

A customized LED lighting system adds to the choppers’ unique look while also enhancing safety by making the bikes more visible to other motorists, particularly at night. The conversion kit includes both custom-made components and products available on the motorcycle aftermarket.

One of the custom choppers earned the Best in Show award in RIT’s 175th-anniversary parade. The second bike may be auctioned this fall, with proceeds used to create another chopper next school year.

“Working on the Tiger chopper was a great time,” says Jeremy Rank, one of the engineering majors involved in the project and who previously completed a co-op position at a Harley-Davidson plant in Kansas City, Mo. “I sent pictures to former co-workers—they were surprised a Sportster could look so good. Educationally, we had a great experience working with three different engineering disciplines and with industrial design students. The end result was a great bike.”

In addition to Santa Cruz Harley-Davidson, owned by Mike James, the team was also supported by DMG America Inc., Hardinge Inc., Magnum Shielding Corp. and Remmco Inc.

“Our objective was to take the least expensive Harley-Davidson model, which retails for about $6,500, and create a customization kit for dealerships to sell to customers interested in enhancing their motorcycle design at a lower cost,” says James Taylor, team mentor and RIT associate professor of industrial and systems engineering.

The multidisciplinary engineering team also worked with students in RIT’s School of Design and College of Business.

Adds Mike James of Santa Cruz Harley-Davidson: “We were very excited to see the results of the Sportster chopper project. What a great collaborative effort across multiple engineering disciplines—the big payoff is students learned a lot about working collaboratively to design and build a project in a finite amount of time.”

Note: RIT’s Kate Gleason College of Engineering is among the nation’s top-ranked engineering colleges. The college offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in applied statistics, engineering science, and computer, electrical, industrial and systems, mechanical, and microelectronic engineering and a doctoral degree in microsystems engineering. RIT was the first university to offer undergraduate degrees in microelectronic and software engineering. Founded in 1829, RIT enrolls 15,300 students in more than 340 undergraduate and graduate programs. RIT has one of the nation’s oldest and largest cooperative education programs.