Motorcycle Project

[turbochris]

haaaa ha ahh ha awesome All you guys with your orange county chopper store bought high dollar custom bikes can kiss my ass! This is an order of magnitude beyond that simplistic shit! simply awesome!

[enginewhisperer]

awesome stuff!

[ernie wrenn]

It did not take long for the neighbors to come out... Nice piece.

[Johansson]

Great news Andrew! I would love to see the bike stretching its legs on the highway.

Cheers!
/Anders

[gidge348]

Love the noise of the thing....that whoooo whooo whooo on throttle up sounds like some monster from the deep.

[jettoymaker]

Hi Guys,

Very sorry I haven't been on of late but I have had so much to do. Sorry I also had to take the vid off, but the rock apes here are threatening to take the video to the authorities, as my ride on B1 constitutes "hoon" activity under the very draconian system of the gray nanny state and I could be charged for a number of things and the bike confiscated. I had no choice but to ride B1 on our street, as there are literally no places here (plus my neighbors love it) that you can take it anywhere to do tests of any sort...it's all very very difficult as anything that isn't a sanctioned sport here isn't allowed (unless you pay someone lots of money) or you have to drive a thousand kilometers just to find somewhere to play for a day

I made a small number of minor modifications to B1 post run and also found nothing out of place or "stressed" by the test, plus finished some installations that weren't included on the day, mostly due to the fact that I figured it was pointless putting them in if B1 self distructed LOL

Temps on the day were above what John had established on the test stand, but we believe that it's mostly due to inlet turbulences caused by the multitude of bits in the way on the bike...once again, the shrouding for B1 wasn't installed due to waiting to to see what else was going to be a problem. I also got a couple of ideas for sound abatement as a result, so all very good..R&D: can't beat it for discovery bliss    The noise on the day we call the "T Rex roar" though I wouldn't recommend we keep it in play for long as goodness knows what stresses it puts the system and components under.   Sounds awsome though and in my mind seems to herald the entry of a new predator on the roads.  The child of Frank is born...all hail the new King LOL

The drive train appears to be going fine, although it was only a very short run and only got up to 120kph fo a second or two (short road) so no real test of anything really, so another clandestine test is being prepared to push the components a bit harder. Am very pleased with the fuel consumption John has managed to get in the 1098 and even though there was a small amount of takeoff lag, mostly due to the fuel testing components still onboard for this run, the bike behaved much the same as Frank did, but with far better stopping power and a lot less mass percieved so with a few more mods it shoud give the current generation of IC bikes a good run for their money. Acceleration was reasonably snappy and deadly smooth. I also gave it a couple of big handfuls and the front end didn't seem to lift at all, but this may change as the fuel system is developed. Can't wait to see what Anders' bike does as a comparison.

Not a lot more I can remember from the run, as I ran way past sensory overload and can only really remember glancing occationally at the speedo and mostly fixed my gaze on the large yellow chip detector light in front of me to see if the gearbox had eaten itself yet LOL

Mark helped me pick up another frame for B2 the other day, so as all of the preliminary design profile is now complete, I will be starting B2 so as to run a parallel, but more advanced test program based on the findings we have from B1, as B1 is configured solely as a systems test-bed and as a design, would not survive for long if operated under the same conditions that B2 is being configured for.

Thanks very much to all of the support and patience that the guys on JATO share, as it has been one of the things keeping my moral up for this project.  Thanks especially to John for trusting me to run this part of the program and showing me that real friendship does exist.  It's still as rare as rocking horse shit, but the best things grow in it  LOL

Will keep you all posted a bit more regularly now that the bulk of the work around here is done (until the next batch hits) and hope that you are all getting enough out of it for the moment.

Regards, Andrew

[racket]

Hi Andrew

The pics I promised :-)

and interested Members

We've been having starter problems ever since I made the 10/98 gas producer for the bike , today a few new bits arrived on my doorstep that will hopefully finally solve them, capable of nearly 5 Kw at ~30,000 rpm







Cheers
John

[Johansson]

Hi John,

Woahh, now that is a starter motor! Careful so you don´t snap the shaft.

Cheers!
/Anders

[rythmnbls]

It'll make a bloody good coffee stirrer

Steve.

[racket]

Hi Anders

LOL.......if this motor doesn't work I don't know what will , 8mm shaft, specs here www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__24850__Turnigy_TrackStar_1_5th_Sensorless_Brushless_Motor_730KV.html

Yeh Steve , put a prop on her and she'd more some fluid

Cheers
John

[jettoymaker]

Hi Guys,

Finally back in...too much happening for one old man to handle LOL

Just put the circuit together on the starter/RC motor that John sent down for me to sort out. I only did the figures on 24V as that is what I'm currently running in B1 and it's also going to be a little more complicated introducing a 36V circuit into the bike as well at this juncture, as down the track I have to run 12V components simaltaniously with 24V components and charge off a 12V alternator, so putting in an additional 36V requirement may introduce more problems than we solve.

The RC motor gives us 16,600rpm unloaded on 24V.
The modified car starter I'm using currently gives 34,000rpm unloaded on 24V.

So even if the RC motor runs at 30,000rpm unloaded I'm not so sure things will get any easier as having to have the extra battery and assorted fittings will take what little space I have in B1 and add more weight than I'm aiming to have at the curb, let alone added complexity. I could run the much smaller LiPo batteries but these are more difficult to deal with than the current batteries and can cause much flame and consternation if they so choose

So I will continue to use the modified car starter to finish up the remaining tests as I have fairly well resolved the other problems it was introducing. Apart from the circuit mods that the RC motor requires to B1, the delays that reconfiguring the mounts to fit it and have it cycle with the 1098 amongst other requirements will definately delay proceedings. The RC motor was worth looking at and I'm reasonably certain it can be used in other projects down the track, if not in B1/B2 as a pump unit if it won't do the duty we got it for. It would most certainly make an excellent starter for other motors.

The main problem we seemed to be having with the starter in B1 was that like the starter John sent down, my first replacement motor was a secondhand unit "modified" but unlike the unit John used with his tests on the 1098 on the test stand, the mount used on the test stand was not able to be used due to constraints placed by B1 in available space, so I sent them back up to John. With that, I had to purchase another starter motor and as it turned out (unknown to both John and myself) the motor I got was even more abused and used than the one I sent back to John, so it had a number of "age" related issues. Once I identified this and replaced the old clapped out starter with one in far better condition, the starts have been very good and very consistant...that clapped out motor was even effecting the batteries in that it assisted in the death of two of the lead acid batteries I was using at the time. Now I'm using LiFePo4 batteries (very different to LiPo) and there is no longer an issue, other than run duration which I have addressed.

The only thing holding me up currently is the weather and hands on board.

[racket]

Hi Andrew

16,600 rpm on 24V isn't that far off the theoretical 17,520 rpm for a 730 Kv motor with 24 volts ( 24 X 730 = 17,520) , its getting ~95% of the rpm , so even at that percentage when on 36V it'll be producing ~25,000 rpm ..............more than enough :-)

Cheers
John

[turbochris]

John, this all started because you got tired of pistons and valves ruining your fun at the drag strip? now you're "the guy" if someone needs a motorcycle turbine!

[Keith LeBlanc]

What a fantastic build! Just got thru reading it from the start. I have a few projects in mind to complete in the event Publisher's Clearing House shows up at my door step with that over-sized $10 million dollar check. I have now added getting you and your mates, family, hell, we'll dig up the whole house/garage complex and transplant the whole shebang to the good ol US of A where ya'll can turn that puppy loose!!
Keep up the good work and thanks so much for sharing this with us.

[jettoymaker]

Hi guys,

Would like to put a general warning up for everyone regarding cheaper components in critical placement on our hard to get and hard to make toys. I dare say that no-one has forgotten Anders' problems and ultimate destruction of the expensive parts of his 10/98 in the last run attempt...broken oil pump switch wasn't it?

What then do you think the odds are of it happening again and more particularly in the same test program with the same system on the same type of engine and in the self same application on the other side of the planet..

Guess what...it can and did happen and as you can see in the picture, the switch on the right(main oil pump switch) is in the middle where it isn't meant to be as the guts of it disintegrated during start due to shoddy materials in manufacture and poor design (but very cheap to buy). All because I thought that a cheap switch would be "ok" for the job. Fortunately, John had already fitted a Hobbs switch in his projects and I took his advise and installed one on B1 as it seemed that a little insurance could save a lot of trouble. It did as the switch immediately shut the motor down and saved B1 from eating itself. I didn't know this until I suddenly noticed a 'different' run noise from the pumps and one indicator light out.

R&D is all about unknowns but we do know that extra effort makes extra safe, so from now on I'm going to save that extra money that is so hard to get, so I can save and protect the even more valuable time it took to get everything together in the first place.