New look for old trike.

[elanimal28]

So..... you want an F1 DRS system on you trike, I love it.

[Liteway]

I had to look that up, as being from an earlier time I still find references and inspiration in the 60s. DRS (drag reduction system)in principle sounds like what Jim Hall was using way back then.
Both were designed to operate with high drag/downforce as the normal mode and activation reserved for times when less drag is wanted; in Hall's case, on the straights, with F1 only allowing its use for overtaking with lots of rule limitations. For road use it would make more sense for the normal position to promote low drag and the downforce position to be activated for high speed cornering and/or braking.

[DaveJ98092]

Reminds me of the Bugs Bunny cartoon of "Air Brakes" . Lots of planes use speed brakes.

[Liteway]

A lot more effective on airplanes which operate at high speed and with relatively little drag to slow them otherwise. It would take a bigger wing than the one above to have a substantial braking affect below a hundred or so. But if I do it right there should be plenty of drag to aid stability and some useful downforce. Any extra braking would be gravy.

Mercedes used air brakes on some of its Le Mans entries in the fifties. If I remember right(big if) They claimed 1/2G deceleration on air brakes alone at the end of the Mulsanne Straight. They were activated with a toggle switch.

Edit 920pm A little research and figures of .31g at 175 and .27 at 150 were found. Don't know what those figures would be without the the 7.5 sq ft brake, so that doesn't say much about it effectiveness.

The Chaparral was referenced in this same discussion page. Here it says its wings normal position was angled just enough to provide stability on the straights and the angle was increased by petal actuation, opposite of what I had found elsewhere and stated above...... I don't know.

[albertus]

That's some quality workmanship, triplethreat. The bodywork and the engineering blew me away! I hope you'll resolve the stability issues of this mean machine.

Your trike refurbishment is being featured in the BikeBuilds.net directory here: triplethreat’s Trike Refurb.
We’re currently displaying only a reduced-size photo (similar to what you’d find in Google Images).
We'd like to ask for your permission to publish the original full-size image with your build listing.

If anyone would like to have a build of their own listed, just shoot me a PM with a link to the build thread and we’ll take care of the rest.
If you wish to add your build personally, please feel free to peruse our Submit feature. No registrations required.

Al

[Liteway]

Category is cruiser? Tag is " V twin"?

Stability is good except in brisk cross winds and no worse than any motorcycle I have ever owned. That's a pretty low standard though and a tadpole trike should be better. I could move on at this point, but I find continued refinement of all types fun and satisfying.

[DaveJ98092]

Feb 16, 2015 11:23:54 GMT -5 Liteway said:

Category is cruiser? Tag is " V twin"?

Stability is good except in brisk cross winds and no worse than any motorcycle I have ever owned. That's a pretty low standard though and a tadpole trike should be better. I could move on at this point, but I find continued refinement of all types fun and satisfying.

And being RETIRED does help! Hum, RE meaning again, TIRED meaning tired = Tired again.

And what category I think it should fit in is one of these three: Touring, Sport or Sport touring. I could see TT putting a small trailer on the back and riding 1500 miles or so. I'd do a 4 Corner tour on a good solid reverse trike if I had time. sc-ma.com/rides/usa-four-corners-tour-site

[elanimal28]

where did you get the door latch? I built my trike's door and now I'm trying to come up with the hinges and latch.

[Liteway]

The latch is a length of 5/8" x .058" steel tubing welded to a mounting flange to provide a sleeve for a shorter length of 1/2" tubing that slides within for a bolt. A compression spring at the end of it keeps it forced out. The other end is cut at an angle and smoothed.
As the door is closed, the bolt is forced into the sleeve by an adjustable striker plate in the jam and then extends into the plate as the door is fully closed. Its a simplified version of the latch on all the doors in your house, but retracted by a handle and linkage rather than a knob.
If anyone doubts this type of latch is safe, you may be right. I do not advocate its use, but its worked Okay for me. In the event of an accident, the design of my trike probably makes it no more likely for me to fall out if the door springs open. Might be a help to keep the arms inside though.

For hinges I used a couple of flat chrome cabinet hinges, not very stout and not suited to anything heavier than my 2.5 lb door. There is an infinite variety of hinges available, just a matter of finding what works for your application.

[elanimal28]

Thanks. I'll go to homedepot and try to rig something similar. I'm planing on using hinges for a house door because my door has a window in it. As my son pointed out the other day, " you have a McDonald's drive-thru windows" LOL.

[Liteway]

Update.
Trike is pretty much bug free and I added another 3000miles (about 9k total) to the odo over the summer. Most miles were added locally but I have become a regular at cars and coffee in OKC so there have been a number of 120mi round trips over there. Its a good trip over on state highways, an alternative to a stretch of I-40 that is particularly ragged.
Fun till I reach the City itself with all its stoplights and broken pavement.
The trike is not a pleasure on bad roads as the ride is a bit stiff and the front fenders bang around on pot holes, but the rest of the trip and destination more than make up for it.
Only one mod since I last checked in, a new volt meter to keep tabs on the battery charge. I will admit it is as much to fill in a blank spot on the dash and look cool as it is about functionality. It costs and weighs little.



As the photo shows, there is some reflection of the headlights into the windscreen.
This was anticipated and should be easily remedied by making a reflective surround for the lights. I do very little night driving so there has been no hurry. Other than that, I have no other mods in mind at this time.

Unless somebody know where I can pick up a wrecked FZ-09 without going far to get it.
Just kidding...maybe.

Oh yes there was another change made. There had been some problem with cokpit heat since the new, more enclosed body work was applied. I thought it was either coming through the front bulkhead behind the radiator or the coolant pipes running within the cokpit. Both were insulated and problem was less but persisted. Finally found out it was backwash off the engine blowing through a gap between the body side panels and the rear bulkhead. A little foam insulation pressed into the gap solved the problem. Easily removed as it should be an advantage this winter.

[Liteway]

Apr 24, 2014 7:01:59 GMT -5 captainamerica said:

I wish I had your ability to draw by hand. The pilot is a nice touch Looks like that front push rod suspension turned out nicely. I realize your shorter then me, but it still gets me when I see how short your wheel base is. I am pushing almost 95" and I could use an extra 2 inches to give my knees some more room. Also I know they are two force members but watch out for buckling on the push rods of that size, whats that OD? looks like 1/2". I also really like your sway bar setup, makes me think I could run that in mine but I think my knees would be unhappy.

As a follow up Andrew was correct. I later encountered an open trench across a county road over a ft wide and several inches deep, completely unmarked. It was dusk, I was doing 60 and could only slow to about 45 before hitting it. The small diameter front wheels had no chance of spanning the gap. Was a hell of a jolt. I expected alignment problems to result, but the trike seemed unaffected so I continued home for a closer inspection. Both pushrods were bent in about a half inch at the center. The good news is there was no catastrophic failure and nothing else was bent in the suspension or frame,a tribute to the overbuilt nature of the ATV components.

I had made no provision for rubber snubbing as the suspension bottomed out, so it was metal to metal as the shocks used up all their travel.
I fixed that oversight and made new pushrods identical to the originals. In the unlikely event I encounter another ditch in the road as severe, I think the rubber snubbers will make a difference. I also increased ride height and spring preload to make bottoming less likely.

[captainamerica]

Glad it didn't end badly here. Always better when something bends and doesn't break, my badly designed rear end tried to rip off the vehicle in the first few months of driving thanks to a cut out I had put in to route the chassis around the exhaust, luckily I caught it before I ended up driving a steerable spark generator. Bumps are killer for me, I have the front end dampers as light as the adjuster will allow and the thing still reacts like its solid. I really need to lower the ratio at the front to help with this, probably with new bell cranks.

Funny story about this, last year they were fixing a bridge over the local lake, each night ripping up a section and refilling in with new concrete and a steel plate over the top to protect it while it dried, they would do two sections about 4 feet long and 30-40ft apart each day. I came over that bridge at night at about 45 mph, I had seen the construction sign but my mind was elsewhere by the time I hit the first steel plate, I felt like the front end launched 6" off the ground and just as my mind was comprehending what had happened I hit the next one with the same result. Definitely did a thorough inspection of the whole trike when I got home that night, no issues were found but experience was gained.

[TomyJ]

Very nice build and lots of great information, thank you all, I hope you're around when I start mine.

[Liteway]

Nov 28, 2015 14:00:16 GMT -5 TomyJ said:

Very nice build and lots of great information, thank you all, I hope you're around when I start mine.

Thanks for your interest, and I do you hope you can get a build started and more importantly, completed.

[Liteway]

You long timers here at the forum have read me brag about how fast my trike is. Turns out my seat of pants need a recalibration.

Nothing like official time slips to set you straight. I sat down to a heavy helping of crow.

A visit to Thunder Valley on test and tune day netted three runs, the fastest time being 14.3 and the terminal velocity each time was between 100 and 101mph.

Part of the reason for the high E.T. was poor traction afforded between the groves left by the 4 wheeled guys.
A lot of tire dust in between. Perhaps I should have requested to line up off center. I could not hook up in first at all, and more time was lost to wheel spin in second. 100 mph should translate to a 13.8 or 13.9 E.T.

Even so the terminal speed was not what it should be for my calculated power to weight ratio, and that will not vary so much as a function of off-the-line traction.

Various sources give the donor bike's rear wheel hp as between 85 and 90.
The trike's all up weight with me and half tank of fuel is about 170+555 or 725 lbs. , about 8.3 lbs per horse.

Using calculations at www.hotrodpitstop.com/tool.php#0

That power to weight ratio should result in a run of 11.72 at 115.42 mph. That does assume excellent traction and a skilled pilot so I would not expect quite that good a time, but 14.3 ?

Working backwards with the formula and plugging in the vehicle weight and terminal speed indicates I am getting a mere 56.5hp at the rear wheel. WOW!
30 hp is not showing up.

So now I'm looking for that. The induction and exhaust systems have been modified and that could account for some loss but not likely of the magnitude I'm looking for.
I think its a compression problem as I'm only getting about 180psi at each cylinder and 200/to 225 is spec. A few drops of oil squirted in the spark plug holes brings the compression up to spec, so I don't think it is a valve problem.

Curiously, the trike gets good gas mileage, uses no oil, and revs cleanly to its 13400 rpm redline, so I'm reluctant to tear the engine down, but d**n, I want them missing ponies.

[captainamerica]

The lack of traction is definitely a serious issue for me as well at the drag strip, the local one here is only 1/8th mile, so its not a great comparison but I've gotten 90mph in 9 secounds and that accounts for 1 second of me just sitting there, as can be seen in my films, finding the clutch. Dump it to hard with power and I spin the wheels for the first 10 feet, dump it to hard without power and I stall, so I am left taking off nice and easy in second and then just saving time by never shifting until I cross the finish. Second gear maxes out around ~110 I believe which makes this possible. If my engine actually makes the rated 175 hp, and the weight is correct at 800 + 200 (me) I am around 5.5 lbs per horse. All in all this makes me cringe at the idea that formula 1 cars are near 1.7 lbs per hp. I have been in a 400hp formula car and it was phenomenal even at around 1500 lbs.

[Liteway]

I made an error. Calculations were supposed to be made using hp at the crank, not rear wheel, so my trike is under performing even worse than I thought. Rated crank hp is 98. Plugging that figure in gives an estimated E.T./sp. of 11.2/120. However, that makes me question the validity of the calculator when applied to bike engines as that is as fast as the 125 lb lighter donor bike is. Even so, theoretical stuff aside, the trike is much slower than it should be given its engine and weight.

[Liteway]

Jan 13, 2016 14:24:35 GMT -5 captainamerica said:

The lack of traction is definitely a serious issue for me as well at the drag strip, the local one here is only 1/8th mile, so its not a great comparison but I've gotten 90mph in 9 secounds and that accounts for 1 second of me just sitting there, as can be seen in my films, finding the clutch. Dump it to hard with power and I spin the wheels for the first 10 feet, dump it to hard without power and I stall, so I am left taking off nice and easy in second and then just saving time by never shifting until I cross the finish. Second gear maxes out around ~110 I believe which makes this possible. If my engine actually makes the rated 175 hp, and the weight is correct at 800 + 200 (me) I am around 5.5 lbs per horse. All in all this makes me cringe at the idea that formula 1 cars are near 1.7 lbs per hp. I have been in a 400hp formula car and it was phenomenal even at around 1500 lbs.

Captain: According to the calculator, with your weight and pwr, 10.34 an 131 quarter is obtainable. Wow. But the calculator assumes optimal traction and gear ratios.
That kind of gearing would not be tolerable on the street, and optimal traction would require a wide slick not practical either. Nonetheless quarter mile terminal speeds are not so dependent on traction and gearing, and being able to approximate them would tell us when our trikes are near their full straight line performance potential.

I have a long way to go, but on the bright side if the trike's speed "feels" as satisfying as it does already, it only gets better when the engine is heeled.

As I have more "stick" time with the latest chassis mods, I've gained a lot of confidence in the cornering power. In moderate to low speed corners (25-50mph), entering the corner hot, it has tendency to understeer as tadpole trikes will, with front wheels braking loose first , but by getting into the throttle, the back breaks loose and I can achieve what I consider the The "Holey Grail" of three wheeler handling, a (simi)controlled 3 wheeled drift.

[Liteway]

We had some discussion about turning circles over on the Captain's build thread. Its 40 outside but curiosity about what mine was drove me over to a nearby new subdivision with cul-de-sacs that do not have houses on them yet. I've used it before for ah....chassis tuning, as usually there is no traffic or people around to be offended by my tomfoolery.

Pics deleted .