Any trikers out there?

mr chips

... or am I the only one on boards?

Just curious! My machine is getting revamped in a couple of days time - new engine which will up my power from 58 to 76 hp :cool:. Getting a different radiator that will be taller but slimmer, and new SIPS. Mongrel of a machine with a VW rear chassis & gearbox onto which is grafted the frame of a Harley Sportster. First to guess what the engine is out of gets a free walking holiday around the north coast.

seanybiker

normally the have beetle engines in em. Is it still ah VW engine going into her or whats the story.
Pics?

mr chips

Nope, not a VW engine. The one that's in there right now is actually a Peugeot, out of a 106 - and it's a DIESEL. :eek: :cool:
I wanted that so I could run it on biodiesel - the exhaust smells like a chippy, which is where the username comes from. There's a mounting plate immediately behind the gearbox belhousing so I can fit more or less any engine I can get on there without causing a permanent wheelie.

The "new" engine is out of a Pug 306, the 1.8 litre XUD TD. It's about 10kg heavier than my existing unit, which is on its way out, but I'm gonna get the flywheel lightened, which should make enough of a difference not to upset the balance with it mounted behind the back wheels in a vehicle that's under 450 kg. Should give me better acceleration in top (fourth) for overtaking, but also better fuel economy cos I won't be revving it as high all the time to cruise at 70.

So anyway, I'm getting that lot sorted out initially, plus repositioning the forward controls and if I get time, maybe new & lower seats before going on a trip in July. Then over the winter I'll be looking at raking out and extending the forks and possibly a bit of body kit done.

seanybiker

Jaysus thats a lovely looking trike.A Diesel and all ha ha thats mental.
if yer ever down near Waterford lemme know. Get a few pics of me sitting on it so I can feel cool. Ill even make a sons of anarchy jacket for meself.
Do you do all the work on it yourself?

mr chips

Cheers - nice to see that someone likes how it looks! It's funny cos I look at it and see all the things I still want to change & have been saving up for.
Not doing the work myself, sadly - don't have the talent, although I'm hoping to learn a bit of welding in the autumn. I'm slowly but surely picking up a few things as I go on but any major jobs have to be done by someone else. I'm just the ideas man!
My folks live down in Co. Wicklow so I might end up down Waterford/Wexford direction at some stage. Taking it to Scotland for a week in July though so won't be down before mid/late August at the earliest.

seanybiker

I would love ta go sound scotland on me bike. Roads are supposed to be class.
What license do ya need for a trike?
A bike one or a car one?
Im presuming its a car one cos the axle is normaly from a car.

smellslikeshoes

Lovely looking yolk, just out of curiosity how noticeable is it that its a diesel? (acceleration etc.)

mr chips

It compares well with other VW-based trikes as you accelerate up through the gears - a little bit quicker than a 1.6 petrol, not as quick as a 1.8 petrol. However the reason I have such tall tyres on the back (28" diameter) is to have a better match up between the engine speed and gearbox ratios - gives me taller gearing, so that I don't run out of puff too quickly in each gear. The 1.5 diesel is a comparitively high-revving engine, which also helps in that regard. But like I say my particular engine is on its way out - it's done over 190k miles, not all in the trike, and I've noticed that it's struggling now above 70mph, whereas it used to be able to zip on up above 90 (on a race track, officer!). While it's still able to get up to 85 or so, it's taking a fair bit longer to get there than it used to, which isn't ideal for overtaking on a motorway etc. Fitting the 1.8 XUD should take care of that and then some. Plus I might fit an intercooler to that, bringing the power up from 76 hp to 90 or thereabouts. I wouldn't mind comparing that with a 1.8 petrol once I get it back!
The engine noise is definitely different, but quite a bit smoother on biodiesel than on derv.

mr chips

Sorry, forgot about the licence question. I live in the north and you can ride a trike here either on a car or a bike licence. I think it's the same in the south, but not 100% sure of that. Will check & come back to you.

seanybiker

ah right deadly. Ya should stick a golf gti engine in it or something. Would scare the bejaysus outta ya then.

mr chips

Ha! That'd be quick alright, and there's a couple of trikers I know who've got HD V-twin engines in the back of theirs, plus another guy whose machine is based on a Porsche. I know a guy who has a trike with a TVR engine in it - think it's 4.7 litres or something like that. He has another with a 5.0 Corvette engine, and another with the engine out of a Honda NSX. I sat on a monster bike of his a while ago which had a 4 litre engine - there was so much torque that when you had it out of gear & gave the throttle just a wee twist, the bike lurched sideways. Insane machine!

But for me it's gotta be diesel so I can still run it on biodiesel. I'm a bit wary of the more modern engines cos of all the computers & common rail etc - I want something that any mechanic can fix, not some guy with a laptop that doesn't know how to diagnose a problem himself.

What I'm hoping to do some day is get the engine out of an old Merc 300D or a BMW 525TDS or an Audi 2.5 TDi - cars that were around in the mid 90s before the electronics & fuel systems on diesels got so complicated, and had V6 inline turbodiesel engines that put out roughly 140-145 bhp. Now that would be a monster trike for running on biodiesel! The Audi one was a 5-cylinder engine in a front-wheel drive car - it could be rear-mounted in a trike if you effectively chopped off the front end of the car & locked the steering so that the car's front wheels become the trike's back wheels. A mate of mine did something similar with a Peugeot, brought a rod forward so he could change gear just the same way as in a car.

mr chips

Ok, here's what I got in terms of licence requirements in the south:
A registered trike is taxed as a bike,insured as a trike,and requires license category 'B' - reference is number 351 European Communities (licencing of drivers) regulations. All information can be found in the Irish statute book - www.irishstatutebook.ie

In short, it seems that yes, you can ride a trike on a car licence in the south.

smellslikeshoes

mr chips wrote: »

Ok, here's what I got in terms of licence requirements in the south:
A registered trike is taxed as a bike,insured as a trike,and requires license category 'B' - reference is number 351 European Communities (licencing of drivers) regulations. All information can be found in the Irish statute book - www.irishstatutebook.ie

In short, it seems that yes, you can ride a trike on a car licence in the south.

Thats a bit of a mess isn't it, taxed as a bike, insured as a trike and requires car licence. Thats the sort of thing that would put me off.

mr chips

Sorry, don't think that means you have to have a car licence - just that you can ride one without having a bike licence so long as you have category B on the car licence.

seanybiker

ah bloody TVR engine in a trike. Jaysus there mad enough in cars ha ha.

bushy...

Motocross forks might be an idea , bit longer and stronger

I carefully tested them a while back in a decent head-on collision with another motox bike , lad "came back to look for me"
Worked out grand, forks were fine. Added bonus one bar went through my boot and fixed a problem for me : at night sometimes a bone would drop out of place and hurt like f*** , never happened since

mr chips

The motocross forks sound pretty robust alright - I like your version of "careful testing" too. The fella who's gonna be working on my machine is building himself a trike with a Ford V8 engine and has built his own front forks - they're massive & they look the mutt's nuts. He reckons he can extend the lower section of my existing ones for very little cost, so I might go with that when the time comes.

Took the trike down to him last night & we spent a good hour or more talking about the engine, radiator, footrests, forward controls, light bar (for the front spotlights) and SIPS.:D Seats are unlikely to be touched at this stage, but those'll be done when winter comes, along with the forks and bodywork and possibly an intercooler for the engine, depending on whether I feel like I want more out of it.

Oh and he was telling me that our mate with the collection of muscle trikes now has one with a 6.5 litre V8 engine - with a nitrous kit fitted!! Apparently he hasn't used the nitrous yet cos the machine is already scary enough without it ...

Pkiernan

Great bike, and love the fact that it's a diesel!

For 15 grand you could drop a 6.6 Litre Chevy Duramax engine in the back, and for 2k more chip it up to 800 Hp.
You wouldn't need a transmission, but could bolt the engine straight to the driveline.

You may see a change in your insurance quote...

mr chips

Yup, I guess I could do that alright!! However I dunno if I'd be able to steer it, what with the front wheel pointing at the sky all the time ...:P

I'm waiting to see how my mate's V8 trike turns out. If I like it, I might approach him about building me that 2.5L TD one that I've been having sinful thoughts about. A lot of the V6/V8 trikes you see look like an iron bedstead with an engine - I particularly dislike the look of tiller steering. However people can also come up with stuff like this, which I saw in 100% Biker a couple of months ago:


... and this, which is the TVR trike I was talking about.

mr chips

Here's another couple of V8 machines that might inspire the shape of a future 2.5 or 3.0 turbodiesel machine - don't be drooling or anything now ...

bushy...

Subaru or 911 or other flat engine might be tidy ?

mr chips

Yeah, I've been thinking about the new Subaru boxer diesel engine a lot! Haven't seen one in real life (have a look at this animation for the shape & layout of the whole thing) but hopefully it might be compact enough to build a custom frame that would allow you to straddle it comfortably enough.

If I was gonna fit it onto my existing trike I'd need to check whether I'd have to flip the diff in the VW gearbox, as the Scooby engine is front mounted - otherwise I'd end up with 1 forward gear and 4 reverse! Also not sure if the Beetle gearbox could handle the torque.

However before considering that at all I'd have to do a bit of research into the engine management system, try & find out whether it might be problematic. That's another reason why any of the V6 turbodiesels I've been thinking about would all date back to the mid-90s or so - relatively simple in terms of electrics compared to modern diesels.

seanybiker

that TVR trike is sexy.

mr chips

Sure makes me wanna ride it ...

Have come up against a snag with the replacement engine - flywheel just a bit too big for the bellhousing of the gearbox. Trying to think of a replacement flywheel, or maybe see if an adaptor can be made for the crank to flywheel mount and use the flywheel from the old engine - would push the engine back a bit though ...

Or, I may end up looking at a VW TDi instead, after all. Most of those should fit the Beetle gearbox bellhousing anyway, or so I'm told. Waiting to get some data on the weight of the engine, if it's no more than 140 kg I might go with the 110bhp TDi and just hope for the best in terms of the electronics. Having said that, once I've got that sort of engine it could always be chipped to 150+ bhp :eek:, but I dunno if the 4-speed gearbox could handle that.

seanybiker

Thats a bit of a setback alright. There another chap with a trike. He posted in the how dangerous are bikes thread. Crap was only in it a second go and cant think of the proper name of it lol

mr chips

seanybiker wrote: »

Thats a bit of a setback alright. There another chap with a trike. He posted in the how dangerous are bikes thread. Crap was only in it a second go and cant think of the proper name of it lol

Just found him after seeing you mention that - Joker.

mr chips

A wee update - have just found a spec sheet on page 6 here - http://www.haywood-sullivan.com/vanagon ... ecs_en.pdf - that says the dry weight for the VW TDi is 135 kg. That's actually 2kg lighter than the XUD, for an engine that could be chipped up above 150 bhp - in fact I just remembered that a guy who was involved in designing those engines told me years ago that they could be chipped up to 180 bhp before you needed to modify the clutch etc.

Holy Mary mother of god ...

seanybiker

ha ha excellent news. Off with ya, get cracking man

mr chips

Just a wee update on this. So far, after doing a lot of digging about flywheels etc, it looks as though the best way forward is to go ahead with the 1.8 Peugeot TD. My mate has found a guy who reckons he can take the middle part out of that engine's flywheel and mate it to the outer part of my existing flywheel from the 1.5, so that it'll fit inside the bellhousing and we can use the existing starter motor. If that doesn't work then it'll have to be a more expensive job of milling a new custom flywheel altogether. However that's a winter job for when the weather is worse and I don't want to miss out on riding around in the sunshine! So I'm sticking with a 1.5 diesel for the time being, which I'll sell in the winter. My old one was dying but this one is sweet as a nut and only cost £150. I'll only be putting less than a thousand miles on it so I'll get most of my money back anyway.

In the meantime, I have new side-impact bars/radiator frame and repositioned forward controls, all of which means I can stretch my feet forward by another 8-10 inches or so - much more comfortable! Plus the steel for the SIPS is the same diameter as what the frame is made of, so it doesn't look out of place the way the old SIPS did. I've also got a new radiator that will let me fit anything up to a 2 litre engine. Off to Scotland on Saturday, yeehaa!!!!







In the winter it's gonna be chopped and lengthened at the point where the bike frame meets the car frame, the front seat will be lowered, the headstock chopped and raked out, the forks lengthened and the whole frame will be sand-blasted and repainted. I'll be sitting lower but both myself and the rear passenger will have more legroom. Might put on a couple of wee side racks above the rear axle, and maybe an extra reserve fuel tank where the battery currently sits if I can move the battery forward to behind the radiator. Plus the bigger engine and new exhausts will be fitted so it'll almost be like a new trike!