Hypothetical, 3 wheel challenge

nocones wrote:

go3wheeler wrote: A lot of people been talking a lot of smack lately. Now comes the challenge to put your money where your mouth is and what happened? I don't have time, money or I can't weld. Really? And than when I saw the drawing I threw up in my mouth three times. Oh man, what a bunch of losers.

Your the Best Go3wheeler! Sorry everyone finds my 5 minute sketch so objectionable.

Yeah dude, you suck. I mean, was that marker even triangulated? I bet that whiteboard has gaps all over it!

kb58 wrote: The "400 lb" is a total no-go.

Hmm... then the number I wrote down when I thought about this whole deal is probably out of line with the car you're thinking about.

240!

I'd be parting out a kart and a Honda CR80 to get there. Front end would use the kart spindles as uprights on a beam axle. Rear end would be some bike swingarm that'll accommodate the tire width I'd be using.

What sort of impact/rollover safety rules do you want? Will there be a rough road test or tire rules?

I STRONGLY recommend reading Paul Van Valkenburgh's paper on on three-wheeled cars. It's SAE 820140. Your local university library will have it. The stability requirements will catch out the unwary.

I propose a more fun challenge. Rather than trying to make something better than go3wheeler's design, let's all build it ourselves (exactly as he describes it).

Then, we'll do a BABE-style rally. The person with the fewest critical injuries after 1,000 miles wins!

In reply to Tom Suddard:

It depends. If it's 400 pounds without the driver I am in but with the driver only gives my about 80 pounds of trike. While the Harbor Freight motors and wheels are probably of the highest quality they are not very light.

Wally wrote: While the Harbor Freight motors and wheels are probably of the highest quality....

I think I may have found THE flaw in your thinking

go3wheeler wrote: A lot of people been talking a lot of smack lately. Now comes the challenge to put your money where your mouth is and what happened? I don't have time, money or I can't weld. Really? And than when I saw the drawing I threw up in my mouth three times. Oh man, what a bunch of losers.

I started my own thread so as not to troll yours. How about you have the same courtesy and be respectful toward the members here or GTFO.

Tom Suddard wrote: I propose a more fun challenge. Rather than trying to make something better than go3wheeler's design, let's all build it ourselves (exactly as he describes it). Then, we'll do a BABE-style rally. The person with the fewest critical injuries after 1,000 miles wins!

Fun idea but I would not waste my time or money to build his design as it would not be street legal in my state.

Also the only company actively organizing banger rallies in the U.S. would not permit a vehicle of unsafe design to run in an on road event due to obvious liability reasons.

nocones wrote:

go3wheeler wrote: A lot of people been talking a lot of smack lately. Now comes the challenge to put your money where your mouth is and what happened? I don't have time, money or I can't weld. Really? And than when I saw the drawing I threw up in my mouth three times. Oh man, what a bunch of losers.

Your the Best Go3wheeler! Sorry everyone finds my 5 minute sketch so objectionable.

That's the difference between going for facebook likes and engineering. Get with the program.

Clearly, it's better to make a crappy DIY car than not making one at all, since i don't really need one. Or perhaps I like being comfortable when I drive to work.

go3wheeler wrote: A lot of people been talking a lot of smack lately. Now comes the challenge to put your money where your mouth is and what happened? I don't have time, money or I can't weld. Really? And than when I saw the drawing I threw up in my mouth three times. Oh man, what a bunch of losers.

Hmm. I think that just means we'll have a bunch of different completion dates. Some of us may want to get the design and analysis done before cutting metal. Others might want to find friends to make sure that they're not designing in a vacuum, or work with materials that they're good at fabricating.

go3wheeler wrote: Oh man, what a bunch of losers.

Annnnd, there goes any respect I had for you or your company. You will note I had nothing but positive feedback in your development thread, but you've shown your true character. If it was up to me you would be banned from the forum.

Edit: And hopefully his latest post is true. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

In reply to go3wheeler:

Your idea? You mean the one you copied from a ton of other people? Seriously?

Good lord, you have a serious ego, don't you? Which explains why you think your design is so very great.

At this point, I do hope you get a good seat, one that wont wear a hole in it as you drag your rear on the ground once that rear suspension fails. It will. One bump, and it will collapse.

C-Ya.

go3wheeler wrote: Ouch! The Truth Hurts. I feel bad for you. Can't even come up with your own idea so you have to take mine. Unlike most of the people here competition excite me a lot but there is the difference between talking and building. I just don't see much competition here so keep talking, this is why you here on this forum giving out free advises and that's great fit for people like you. Don't get me wrong what ever you do is great and going to benefit me and other three wheeler builders so don't stop trying, get back up when we you fall down and don't stop trying. For my people and you know who you are just keep watching to see how exiting things come to life for real and when I'm going to stop posting my build here you know where to find me. Peace out I'm out Like us on Facebook [this link has been removed. -admin]

Can we please ban this clown and delete all of his "advertisements"?! A google search of his user name shows he has been spamming message boards all over the internet with these same exact posts, and even Wikipedia: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcar

I missed the part where I fell down and need to pick myself up. Am very glad that the god of 3 wheeled vehicles has permitted us to continue copying him.

If he thought my car sketch was bad I think his head would explode if he saw the beam front axle I would run.

hmmm...

ive got a long drive today and too much time to think.

just to make it more difficult, ill plan to only use the fab equipment i currently own: a harbor freight flux core, angle grinder, and sawsall.

when/where is the competition?

my initial thoughts are to source yard/farm parts for this. i know i had a regeared rising mower that i clocked at 45 before my balls got too small. it had more in it.

In reply to Dusterbd13:

Stop thinking, start cutting and welding- that's the key.

Designs product. Refuses assistance from people who may or may not be smarter than him. Gets pissy when we help. Gets pissy when we go off and do our own thing. Leaves FB link up so we might "like" him. I sense danger.

He even wrote 'like me on facebook' on Wikipedia.

Some people's kids... I tell ya.

Entitlement is a motherberkeleyer. Everyone's the BEST! No one takes criticism anymore.

go3wheeler has shown continued disrespect for the community even after being given an opportunity to reestablish his credibility. I've locked his build thread, deactivated his account and deleted his links.

Carry on.

This whole adventure of trike threads has been pretty amazing, honestly. If there's a ban, please leave his posts up for posterity. Part of me hopes this guy is actually an epic troll, but unfortunately I've actually worked with people this dense, disconnected, and entitled. Seriously, the round of attacks on some of you guys in the other thread was gold.

Back to being nice- it's not as if a 3 wheeler is a bad idea. So keeping with tradition of much bench racing......

One of the things I think is important is driver comfort. What's the point in making a car that is so horrible to drive that it's irrelevant that you can get 100mpg?

One biggie that means to me is HVAC- at least a heater. Which is kind of why I was going with a FWD powertrain, since it would have that plus AC.

Still- for a water cooled engine, you can at least have a heater pretty easily. Air cooled- it would be a little more work, but it does seem to be important.

I like the idea myself, even if I don't have the time for anything more than bench racing right now. I've been thinking that for stability, you'd want at least 2/3 of the weight on the front wheels. So the logical thing seems to be to go with a front engine, FWD configuration. Following that logic, it would also be easiest to use a complete front subframe from a donor car. I'm almost thinking an Audi with the engine entirely ahead of the front axle would make the best option.

The difficulty in using a FWD powertrain is overall height. FWD drivetrains are tall, meaning the driver needs to be more upright, meaning a higher CG, and less stability. Custom long a-arms would help. Does the GRM hivemind know of a FWD donor with a low-packaged drivetrain?