The Spartan trike project by CaptainAmerica

Never mind the last dumb question. Over 3 inches of wheel travel the difference is less than .040" duh. JBB

Not a dumb question. I refer you to pages 6&7 of "Bandit Trike Project" under build projects.

First trike I built I made my own coilovers with a $20.00 Monroe gas shock from the front of a Chrysler Cordoba (remember the Corinthian leather), a $20.00 coilover spring and machined a threaded sleeve to mate them together.

That shock was easy to work with, as it has a threaded stud on each end. As they were cheap gas filled units they had to be mounted top pointing up.

Used them on all four corners, worked great. Did not have a sway bar and when overpowering the tires the trike would do a nice flat sideways slide with very little body roll.

Shock and spring possibilities are endless.

So last night I got to the job fixing the rear end, as can be seen the exhaust cut out didn't do much for rigidity, probably the weakest point in the chassis. Remember folks triangulation. Anyway Tuesday afternoon I came up with a plan and after work bought the required tubing (1 x 0.156 wall) which should do the trick. Since the swing arm mounts are now welded to the chassis they are no longer removable and there was no reason to have a separated mount system for the bell crank. I probably pissed off most of the neighbors grinding steel and running my air compressor for the plasma cutter late at night but work has to be done by the day laborer. Anyway everything is basically in place, the new cross bar is welded in and I am just waiting on the right bolt to be shipped to do the final welded of the new tabs that will hang doing and support the bell crank similar to the chassis, this is probably heavy and overkill but I don't like to fix things more then once.

Hey Captain, back after taking time on my Ducati, Ouch, you could have been in serious sh!t if that failed while you were doing some wheelies! Was it a slow progressive fail or did it just happen on a drive out?

It doesn't rain a lot here in NC but it does rain often, haven't driven it to work at all this week as thunder storms seem to roll in every afternoon. I do have time to work in the garage on the weekends though so I am pushing ever closer to stripping it down for paint, seam welded the mirror mounts and made a hole in the back side behind the mount structure that allows for wiring and mirror nut removal, before they were permanent attachments unless I cut the mount structure off. I have one head light out, apparently its crappy and broke internally at some solder points, so i fixed it but the solder didn't hold overly well so now the light blows the fuse if its on for more then a few minutes in parallel with the other side. Legally i can forgo it, and I will, until I get the motivation to hook it to the high beam circuit so it has its own fuse and power wire. I rolled through 1300 miles this past weekend without an issue.

In other news the state would like a title bond before they give me an actual title, apparently me saying I built it wasn't enough for them, I feel like showing them this forum page and saying here! give me my title!

Finally got my new sway bar put together, badly again, I am in fact lazy sometimes especially when I have the choice between driving it and working on it and so it broke again. Only noticed it when I took the nose cone off to take the photo. It had almost zero stiffness anyway through that 1/2" tube from the feel of the car so I was planning on replacing it anyway, probably with 3/4" and maybe some better steel.

I've actually been lazy as of late. I have a video to upload of me strippin the spartan of all parts prepping for paint. Now I am waiting for the powder coating shop to have time so I haven't had the chance to drive in almost three weeks. Trying to get everything together for the one time rebuild, getting all the switches soldered, wiring harness wrapped and so on.

Try this one, 12 minutes and just funny to watch me at hyperspeed.

August 3rd, 2014

The finished product is here, minus a few tweaks. Really glad I went with powder coating, kinda wish I added more color but it turned out nice anyway. I spent a lot of extra time on the rebuild getting everything in a position to stay for good especially with the wiring hardness. I hooked it all up and it turned over on the first try. The brakes still need a better bleed and it is over heating, but I think I have that figured out, vac leak making it run super lean, gonna try and fix it tonight.

Things I added, custom designed high misalignment pieces for much higher strength rod ends at the wheels, heat shielding on the drivers back side, routing the wiring harness under the driver instead of around the side, new clutch, painted the stator cover (for the complainers). First test drive we a few minutes ago, engine was running super hot, 250 range, killed it to look for the issue.

Putting a feeler out to the crowd of builders and fans on this site. I am considering taking my design to a commercial level and selling it as a non-street legal kit (ie off road) you put together and register it under your own states requirements. Initially it would be offered to work with any 04-08 GSXR 600-1000cc bike as a donor. The kit would come with anything that doesn't come on the bike, chassis, suspension, wheel outers, steering, pedals, brake system, wheels, etc. I am running the numbers currently but expect the cost to customer to be in the range of $12,000 plus the cost of the donor bike.

Is there any serious interest here? just send me a message and let me know what you think.

Sept 2014

So after a few weeks of head scratching about my cooling problems I finally figured it out. The issue was inability to keep the engine temps down during driving, at idle they would begin to come down but I usually wasn't idling that long. For those of you reading this, it probably seems backwards I would imagine, cold when idling, how when running when the air should be flowing the best. Turns out that the wires to the fan were backwards, by color they matched the system but because I am running a pusher fan not a puller the direction needed to be reversed. Which in the case of a DC motor you just switch the wires. This meant that the moment I hit 225 the fan would kick over pulling air away from the radiator and pretty much stopping the cooling system. Previously I was running in the 220-240F range, one little change, 200-225F range. The moment I hit 225 and the fan kicks on the temps drop, very frustrating problem but an easy fix at the end of the day luckily.

Andrew

Looks good Captain. I have big front tire/brakes envy.
Ever get the issues with front anti-roll system sorted?

Not sure what qualifies as extreme cornering, I have pushed it in my opinion on the back rounds near my town as fast as I pretty much dare to go. The trike is solid up to around 80mph which is about the max I go off the freeway, I think maturity kicks in and tells you that you designed it and if it fails your going to hit that tree at 70 mph and you might not survive so lets have some fun but live to see another day. On the freeway I maxed at about 110mph, this is almost more due to nutsting road surfaces around here with all the 18-wheelers tearing it up and the noise. Its interesting how much louder everything is in an open thingypit, and its not just wind noise, I think its more the tires honestly.

Getting back to your original question, it feels really good in the corners, its an absolute blast to drive and see the reactions of people you fly past. Down shifting and braking hard coming into a corner and then the apex and back on the throttle and upshifting is an amazing feeling especially when you get it all right and just blast out of the corner. I have now put 2100 miles on it since April, and it was down for powder coating for 2 months of that.

In other news, the power coater burned off my VIN stickers before I was able to get the thing inspected. So I was stuck in limbo where I have plates and registration but no title. I contacted the state inspectors office and asked for VIN replacement, they did what they could and the state came back (stupidly in my opinion) that they could not make new stickers and would have to re issue my VIN, which they did so now my VIN does not match my registration and I will probably have to start the whole process over again which sucks because registration was $500. Yay more of me in the poor house.

Also for anyone interested I am getting ready to start my new chassis, which looks very similar to the one posted in Nedkelly's page. More on this soon.

I just read the whole thread in the last couple days, how do you like the reclined seating position? would you have preferred it more upright? I find it uncomfortable sitting reclined in my car, but I think it's due to the steering wheel being too far away. I want design my trike as low as possible

Did you post the seating area dimensions? I did see some dimensions of the frame, but I would like a good baseline to go from for seating. reclination angle, seat width, steering and dash height, etc. Thanks man I love the build so far!