Tuesday, October 18, 2011
The Donor
To Craigslist I go! Lots of crashed, old, cheap motorcyles out there. I spent a couple weeks looking at GSXRs, R6's, an RC51, just about everything you can think of. Then, like it was calling my name and begging to be part of my new toy, I came across a 1999 Triumph Daytona 955i. Why is this one so special? First and foremost, it's a 3 cylinder. How freaking cool is that - a 3 cylinder engine for my 3 wheeler? That has a couple other advantages - it's narrower than the 4 cylinders out there. Next, I had dreamed of doing a single-sided swingarm. I'm a sucker for that exposed wheel - just looks really sweet. Oh, and rear wheel - 3 spokes. That was the one. Bought it, tore it apart. Man I love tearing things apart. The engine will work, the gas tank will work, the swingarm and rear wheel and tire will work, has a good battery and oil cooler too. Here we go. Pics!
Saturday, October 1, 2011
The Idea
I spent the last 5 years racing Dwarf Cars around Michigan. If you don't know what that is, check out Midwest Classic Racers. What a blast - learned a bunch, met some great people, just really strengthened my love of tinkering. When I started, I bought a "beater" car because:
1) I knew I'd wreck it
2) I knew I'd be slower than dirt for quite a while so the car, no matter how bad, would be faster than me
3) I love to tinker! If I could make a turd go fast, that would be something, wouldn't it?
Turns out I was right on 2 of the 3. I did wreck it. I did tinker and put the car in the top 10 on several occasions ('til I rolled it. Another story, another day). Unfortunately, I never got much faster than dirt myself. The car was always faster than my brain could ever be. So I sold out - but with the next project already working it's magic in my head.
I want to build a Locost 7. Did a ton of research, had the whole thing dreamed up in my head. Then came the fine print. Michigan laws for titling a self built car are just more than I wanted to tackle. Particularly the windshield with working windshield wipers AND washer. That and a lot of other issues lead me to the next idea, a reverse trike. I've drooled over the Campagna T-Rex for a decade now but Oh-My-God are they expensive. So after a few weeks or rooting around the Internet and daydreaming, the final concept came to me. I've seen lots of reverse trike builds where the front half of a simple 2-seater cockpit is grafted in front of a motorcycle with the fork removed. Interesting idea, but they just don't look right. Way way way too long and they just kinda look wonky to me. No offense to those that have done it - I love the simplicity and if I need a 2-seater, I'd probably have to do something similar. But I don't need or want a 2-seater!
Packaging is the fun part. My first light bulb was, if I don't need a 2 seater, why not put the engine where the passenger would go? Fairly equal weigh distribution, similar C.G, plenty of room in front of the engine for fuel cell, radiator, electronics, etc.. Where that layout fails though is getting the chain to the rear end. The engine sprockets and the swingarm sprockets are both on the left side. So, to help with that, I'm going to flip the swingarm upside-down to move the sprocket to the right side - almost in line with the engine! Might have to do a short jackshaft to get the offset correct, but shouldn't be too bad!
So I started scouring for parts and found a 3D CAD package to start sketching it up. Here's the sketch, more on the donor in my next post.
1) I knew I'd wreck it
2) I knew I'd be slower than dirt for quite a while so the car, no matter how bad, would be faster than me
3) I love to tinker! If I could make a turd go fast, that would be something, wouldn't it?
Turns out I was right on 2 of the 3. I did wreck it. I did tinker and put the car in the top 10 on several occasions ('til I rolled it. Another story, another day). Unfortunately, I never got much faster than dirt myself. The car was always faster than my brain could ever be. So I sold out - but with the next project already working it's magic in my head.
I want to build a Locost 7. Did a ton of research, had the whole thing dreamed up in my head. Then came the fine print. Michigan laws for titling a self built car are just more than I wanted to tackle. Particularly the windshield with working windshield wipers AND washer. That and a lot of other issues lead me to the next idea, a reverse trike. I've drooled over the Campagna T-Rex for a decade now but Oh-My-God are they expensive. So after a few weeks or rooting around the Internet and daydreaming, the final concept came to me. I've seen lots of reverse trike builds where the front half of a simple 2-seater cockpit is grafted in front of a motorcycle with the fork removed. Interesting idea, but they just don't look right. Way way way too long and they just kinda look wonky to me. No offense to those that have done it - I love the simplicity and if I need a 2-seater, I'd probably have to do something similar. But I don't need or want a 2-seater!
Packaging is the fun part. My first light bulb was, if I don't need a 2 seater, why not put the engine where the passenger would go? Fairly equal weigh distribution, similar C.G, plenty of room in front of the engine for fuel cell, radiator, electronics, etc.. Where that layout fails though is getting the chain to the rear end. The engine sprockets and the swingarm sprockets are both on the left side. So, to help with that, I'm going to flip the swingarm upside-down to move the sprocket to the right side - almost in line with the engine! Might have to do a short jackshaft to get the offset correct, but shouldn't be too bad!
So I started scouring for parts and found a 3D CAD package to start sketching it up. Here's the sketch, more on the donor in my next post.
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