Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryland
70% of your breaking power is at the front wheels, because as you slow the vehicle the weight shifts to the front, it keeps the vehicle more stable.
I personally like the idea of a 4 wheeled vehicle, a big part of that is living in an area that gets snow, with three wheels you end up with three tire tracks, with 4 wheels you end up with 2 tire tracks, I've also driven a 3 wheeled electric car in the summer on clean dry roads as well as on some dirt road and on well worn roads the rear wheel being in the center gave a less stable feeling.
Have you looked in to the Sunrise EV2? the trouble is that the design is nearly 20 years old so the vehicle that you stripped down for the doors and sub frame is also over 20 years old now and getting harder to find.
Using a unibody vehicle makes the project a little harder to a point but it also means that the body should have some stiffness to it, so cutting a whole side off of a unibody car to make use of the doors should not be a problem, a lot of new cars now glue body panels on instead of welding, spot welds create a weak point because they are a single spot of contact while two panels glued together end up being much stiffer, auto part stores sell to body shops so any auto part store should stock or be able to order these glues for gluing panels together, I see this option as being much cheaper then learning to spot weld.
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Ryland,
I wanted to make sure I wasn't "missing" anything in regards to the re-gen braking concept.
4 wheels in the snow...much better, I get your point.
Sunrise EV2...I'm familiar, they have a good idea but it's going to be too much general work for the average DIYer...I'm thinking of a much simpler "bolt together" end product.
Glue it, weld it, tape it together...whatever works!
No really, I don't think the uni-body poses too big of a major challenge.
Wayne
SC