Today’s featured ride is a very unique 2010 Kawasaki Teryx built and owned by Son Windham. We caught up to Son while attending the 2014 High Lifter Mud Nationals and his very unique custom built ride immediately caught our eye! Son explained to me how he came up with the ideas to transform his Teryx into a rig that screams “out of the box thinking.” He also explained how he utilized his ingenuity and fabrication skills because he is the type of person that doesn’t like to pay others to do a job that he is capable of doing himself. At SideBySideStuff.com we encourage and salute that type of thinking!
What is your your name?
Son Windham
Where do you reside?
Huxley, Texas
What is your current ride? Year, Make and Model
2010 Kawasaki Teryx
How did you get interested in Side by Sides?
I got into riding UTV’s when several of my friends purchased side by sides. It reminded me of when I was a young kid and how I always wanted a Honda Big Red 3 Wheeler. I’ve always been a working man and never had the time to ride UTVs, but at the age of 31 I finally broke down and bought my Kawasaki Teryx. I had my bike for about a year and I had snorkeled the bike and I was going to try running it through some deep water. Well it didn’t go as planned as I ended up flooding the motor. At that time I was still able to get it dried and it ran for another half a day then it blew up. At that time I knew I needed to build my bike back bigger and better.
What are some of the modifications to your ride including aftermarket accessories, custom parts and appearance changes?
After seizing up the stock Kawasaki engine I turned to Daniel Turner, owner of Turner Cycles in Humble, TX. I had researched big bore kits and discussed with him how I wanted to rebuild my motor with the Muzzy 916 CC stroker big bore kit. After having all the parts machined and receiving the big bore kit, Daniel built my engine just the way I wanted. Daniel snorkeled my bike as well as engineering an awesome bracket to attach snorkels to the cage.
When I got my bike back, my wife and I were at every side by side ride we could find. After the engine was rebuilt it had so much more power and of course I have a lead foot so I would trash my drive belts all the time. I had to learn how to drive this thing to be able to enjoy it without tearing up the components.
After the engine rebuild I decided I was going to tear my bike all the way down and build a bike like nobody has ever seen. I have always loved exhaust stacks so I decided I had to put a set of stacks on my ride, I have yet to see dual 6 inch stacks on a UTV. I knew I wanted this bike up high so I bought a 6 inch lift from CATVOS and installed the kit myself. With a lift kit I decided I had the room required to put 15 inch SS rims with 33 inch Terminator tires on the bike.
Next it was time for some sound, I built my speaker top myself and built it to hold over 40 speakers. With that many speakers on top and bottom of the box I was going to need lots of power, so I installed 1700 Watts of amps to push them. I also added five Altima batteries to have all the power I would need to crank the stereo on out long rides.
While looking at the bed one day I decided it was just too plain, a friend said I should consider making a 3D style bed. I decided I was going to relocate my fuel tank to the bed and build a 3D bed around it. It was a lot of cutting, grinding, fabricating and welding but we got it completed and we are very happy with how it turned out.
When I decided to add the duel stacks I needed to come up with a way to support them. I decided a unique way to do that would require me to extend the roll cage over the newly built 3D bed. With that in mind, we bent up some pipe and constructed a secondary roll cage to support my stack along with giving it a look and stance like nobody has ever seen.
Recently, just a week before the High Lifter Mud Nationals, I decided I really needed a custom paint job to go with the rest of the custom theme. So with the help of a friend we sanded down the bike, did the required body repair and repainted it. We finished just in time to load it up and head off for the weekend at the Nationals.
What would you like your next accessory, mod or ride to be? And why?
I just installed new upholstered seats in the bike after we got back from Mud Nationals. I still have a lot more work that I want to do to it, like some additional custom fabrication work that I will do myself as well as having my friend finish painting the bike. I’m going to mount a 30 inch dual light bar on top of the bike and as crazy as this might seem I will be adding some more speakers; I’m going to have to find a place to mount four 10 inch subs.
Where is your favorite place to ride?
I ride with my wife and friends anywhere we can find a place to ride. We like to ride along the pipeline in Neuville, TX, all of which is illegal I’m sure; but we figure there’s power in numbers and we are usually running 16 bikes deep. I really don’t think they will haul us all to jail! LOL.
Are you into riding trails, rock, water, sand or other?
We like running through any kind of dirt, mud or rock!
Have you had any close calls, scary moments or all out wipe out stories to share with us?
I have a crazy story.
We were riding one night while my wife was pregnant with our first child, this was before the big 6 inch lift, stacks and 33 inch Terminators. We were in some pretty deep water and I got my bike stuck on a submerged log. I had to keep my foot on the throttle to keep the water from running back into the motor through the exhaust as the pipes were under water. While we were waiting on a friend to come drag us out of the water, the exhaust fumes got to my wife. Next thing I know she passed out and sank into the water; we had to find her, pull her out and revive her. Once we got all of the water out of her lungs and she started breathing again, we took her to the hospital and got her and the baby checked out luckily they were both OK!
During the ordeal I had to let off of the throttle to save her so my brand new engine flooded again. I had to drain the engine and dry it completely out and it seems ok.
