Some custom work going on in the "Matt-Cave" :~)

recumpence

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Hey Guys,

Here are some teaser pics of my latest build. I am not saying what the drive-train will be yet. But, this will give you an idea how serious I am about building a ROCKET!

This is a KMX Typhoon project. I started with a stock KMX Typhoon, then I stripped it, sand blasted it, and cut it apart. The frame was widened 5 inches, lengthened 3 inches, and lowered 3/4 inch. After that, I decided to make the frame into a Space-Frame by using the seat framework as a stressed member. Trusses have been added between the seat frame and mainframe, ala Ducatti, to connect the seat and frame member together as mutually stressed members.

The total itme invested so far is 12 hours. I still have 3 hours of work left to do to the frame before it goes in for powder coating. The frame and rims will be gloss yellow with clear powder over the top and everything else will be gloss black (also cleared). Then the seat will be embroidered with yellow accents and the trike will be professionally pin-striped.

It will use 203mm Hope 4 piston hydraulic brakes.

It will use CNC machined battery boxes anodized black, containing 40AH of 12S lipo.

Total wattage will be 30,000 continuous. :mrgreen:

I am pushing for 0 to 60 time on par with a ZR1. It should corner similar to a go-kart.

Anyway, enjoy the pics for now.

Matt
 

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OH yeah thats the shit Matt stretched widened and reinforced this babies going to have some SERIOUS mojo

KiM

p.s should enter it in the TT :mrgreen:
 
OMG Matt I don't have a clue except didn't James Cameron/and all make millions on "Alien" stuff?
Rock On afaik :)
 
very nice frame you got there! looks crazy strong

are you doing the welding yourself?

either you work really fast or I must be way slow cause that would have taken me alot longer than 12 hours

can't wait to see the drive you've got lined up for this :mrgreen:
 
Yes, I do all my own welding. The welds on the frame are not the prettiest. I still have to hit them with the flap-disc. :)

I used to do MIG welding for a living.

I wish I had a TIG. The welds would not be so blotchy, then. I have to use relatively low power for this thin walled steel. So, it tends to ball up. The grinder with a flap-disc will clean it right up.

I also have custom 1.75 inch wide rims coming for it as well. There will not be any stock parts on this thing except the hubs and rear derailer.

I am even powerder-coating the cranks to match the frame.

This thing will be street-rod quality when it is done.

Matt
 
WaWaWa,
Another one of Matts supa-powred rc builds...drools just thinking about it.
Is 12S 40Ah, the final config??
I'm guessing your using a CC so 12S lipo would be max but 40Ah of lipo, so much available amps on tap.
Should be a rocket, that's if you can get enough traction :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: or just rip up the tire to shred mashing the throttle :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:
 
I'm not even going to try and do the power to weight ratio numbers yet. But how many sacrifices to the Hookworm gods do you figure before you have it dialed in? :twisted:
 
OK, I am going to reveal the secret of this build so you guys can give some input about the configuration before it becomes finalized.

This trike will use 4 Astro Flight motors. Two 3220s and two 3215s. It will be (are you ready?) AWD. :mrgreen:
The front wheels will each have one 3215 and the rear will use two 3220s. It will run four of the new HV160 ICE controllers. The 40AH of lipo are 35C. This thing should pull 800 amps for a second, then settle into 600 to 700 amps for another 3 seconds before it winds out at about 65mph. I have done the math and the trike will weigh about 290 pounds with me on-board. It will have 40hp on tap. That is the power to weight ratio (and roughly the same traction) as a shifter-kart. Those karts hit 60 in under 3 seconds. So, I am assuming about 3.5 seconds from 0 to 60mph (0 to 100kph).

Here is the layout;

The front wheels will each have a disc brake and a sprocket (just in-board of the disc brake). Then there will be one of my single stage drives using a #25 chain instead of the belt for power handling reasons. Every wheel will have a freewheel. So, it will still be pedalable in case something happens and I need to pedal home. I think it will be terrible to just pedal around. :D

I have been in communication with race car drivers, RC car record holders, engineers, etc, etc, etc, and the AWD should be fine. I have done torque steer tests (hitting left and right brakes independantly going backward to simulate differential accelleration traction) with good results. My only concern is not torque "Steer" but torque "Veer". I am not worried about the bars pulling out of my hands under torque. But, I am a bit concerned about the trike pulling to one side if one front tire bites alot harder than the other. This should be ok, however, because there will only be about 6500 to 7000 watts on each front tire under accelleration. That should not be enought to get out of control from traction differential. But, you never know untill you try. This is a totally weird setup and I am a bit concerned about safety. So, to that end, I am puting more safety features into this trike than any previous build.

Also, with all wheels having freewheels, it should steer smoothly under normal driving as well as power drifting while smoking all 3 wheels.

One HUGE benefit of individual drives at each wheel is the ability of over driving or under driving the front wheels compared to the rear. If the rear wheel is geared a touch taller than the fronts, the trike will oversteer a bit. If the rear wheel is undergeared versus the fronts, it will understeer a bit. This is a fantastic tuning tool that is otherwise not available with such a simple chassis layout.

I am pushing hard on this project. But, it may not be done for months yet.

I am fitting the drive units today to check for clearances. I am also comissioning the CNC battery boxes today as well.

Oh, also, the motors will be wound for 13,000 RPM rather than the previous 11,000 RPM of the motors on my previous trikes. So, not only does this thing have nearly twice the motor power, but 18% more RPM. That added RPM, combined with lower overall gearing will give over twice the actual power (torque) at the wheels than my previous trikes. It will, then, have 3 times the traction available. My previous trikes hit 50mph in 4.5 seconds. Therefore, I think it is safe to say this one should hit 60 in 3.5 seconds just looking at the numbers.

One problem, though; This is such a new layout, It may accellerate in such a funky manor (darting left and right rather than going straight) that it may not be a feaseable setup. If that occurs, I will simply remove the front wheel drive portion of the setup and have a RWD trike that happens to be wider and longer for better hanlding than my first trike setups.

Lets hope it willl track straight. I REALLY want this thing to succeed.

We shall see, my friends, we shall see! :mrgreen:

Matt
 
yea, I'm also curious how you will be addressing the traction problems.
 
haha AWD recumbent, world first??not very knowledgeable about them but sounds very slick indeed.
I don't want to add up your costs for this build but 4 friggin astros and CC's and 12S 40ah of lipo ... I can only dream
Will the 3115 motors mounted onto the front wheels affect your ability to steer?? depends on how and where, but does it make the steering heavier?? and its a pretty beastly heavy trike as well.

Great start on the project, best of luck, even though you won't need it. Matt relies on skills, patience and his status as god of motorized recumbences and fabricating & machining extraordinaire.
 
fechter said:
Yeah, not your granny trike. :twisted:

You might need electronic traction control...
Lookin for some EE side-work? :mrgreen:

The traction steer (torque steer) should not a huge issue considering the wheels will all be smoking much of the time I am accellerating. If they hook really hard, then torque steer may be an issue.

Matt
 
Trick frame looks as if it should take gobs of power for sure. How about a couple of roll bars to attach a fairing for a bit better aerodynamics and to keep me dry. Where did you say you are going to park that? ;^) You have enough motors on board for the rest of us to build several of our dream bikes. Speaking of several, going to be running a few battery packs are you? Hope there are some left when I go to get mine.
Looks like a great project looking forward to seeing it finished and smoking down the track.
 
Being a proponent of multiple motors I expect your acceleration to exceed your expectations and the handling to be superb. My experience is limited to "much" lower powered two wheel trailers, but performance always seemed to exceed the sum of the parts, even with the added weight.

I've always been curious about the actual handling with two motors on the front of a tadpole. I remember when the Australian cop "flatfoot" first built his tadpole he had used two forks from BMX bikes up front. I tried to get him to stick a couple of hub motors in those forks just to try it, but he changed them out to one sided spindles before that ever happened. I have not seen any tadpoles set up with front wheel drive up to now.

Good luck, and anxious to see the results. :D
 
As long as you've got a good strong grip to hold the wheels straight, in a vehicle with no suspension, torque steer won't be an issue at all.


Your work there looks great Matt :) You've added a boatload of stability and strength to that chassis, and with the amount of power you're soon to be feeding it, I think you made a wise start to your wild project. :) Can't wait to see how things progress! :)

Best Wishes,
-Luke
 
Has your wife slipped some papers for you to sign, or have you recieved mail about a second life insurance policy? :lol:

"Only 7000 watts per wheel" might be reason enough to put you in the looney bin. Seriously though, this promises to be another legendary build that will require onboard video drag racing a vette or the like... Or at least some sorry sucker on a liter bike that is willing to put down $1000 cuz he thinks he can beat you to sixty. :mrgreen: after a few street races you might be about to recoup some of you cost.

Are those KMX adjustable for toe in and camber?

Where is that damn bow down smiley?!!??
 
The front toe in is adjustable, for sure.

I spent some time researching the AWD today and I came up with a game-plan for this trike.

First, I will build the entire trike as RWD only to do some testing. Then I can work on the front wheel drive. This is for two reasons;

#1 Cost. This thing is breaking me!

#2 Time. The front wheel drive will more than double the build time. This will get it on the road sooner.

#3 Weight.

#4 Performance evaluation.

I spent some time talking with some RC guys today. We went over this design and the expected performance and a few things came to light. First of all, I will be running a far wider rear rim than my previous trikes (wider rims all around). Second, the higher RPM motors along with far higher pack capacity will give my ALOT more power. Third, this trike will have much more weight on the rear wheel than my previous trikes. It looks like it may accellerate so hard just on the rear wheel, that the front end will lighten up enough to negate the added traction benefit of the front wheel drive.

So, here is the plan, it will be built (finished off beautifully) with rear wheel drive. Then I will do some performance and handling testing. If the front end is getting light under hard accelleration, and it pulls like a Vette, I may leave it rear wheel drive only. Basically, if it is already pulling so hard and I will not gain anything, I will not do the front wheel drive. If it is obviously losing a ton of traction, I will work on the FWD.

What would you guys do?

Matt
 
My Pitts will do 0 - 140mph in 1/4 mile, but I'm sure you would definitely :shock: have me in the first hundred yards or so.
My fun begins after that 1/4 mile...! 8)

inv.jpg


I think with initial weight transfer RWD would be plenty, as the fronts would be fairly light - but cornering will be a different matter...

Mark W. Dickey
KHYSKU42
 
The first trikes I built (they are owned by friends of mine currently), on fresh pavement pull so freakin hard, it is (quite honestly) frightening. The torque is unbelieveable. This trike, even with RWD only, will have about 30% more torque than my previous trikes, about 30% more traction as well (wider wheel and tire), and much more weight on the rear wheel. It may even tend to wheelie. It is so low to the ground that I do not think it will flip. But, the more I think about it, the more sure I am that RWD will give me pretty much the same accelleration as AWD.

Anyway, the battery boxes will be machined Friday. After that, the trike will be mocked up to make sure everything clears. Final gussetting will be added, then it will be disassembled and off to the powder coater.

I expect (since I am dropping the FWD for the time being) it will be on the road in less than a month.

You should see these 16 inch wheels with 203mm discs on them. It looks awesome! :mrgreen:

Matt
 
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