Our own car designs

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by Sven7

........It really depends on whether GM hires me on direct............

Good luck with that, I hope GM puts your talent to work for them.

Originally Posted by HydroJim

I like this design the best.

I like that yellow one too.

[Big Dave]

Three wheel "reverse tricycle" vehicles are necessarily unstable. Why not put that to work for you and rather than have a three wheel car have a reverse trike motorcycle that tilts into a curve or crosswind like a motorcycle.

This guy offers a reverse trike conversion for Harley Road Kings. At least it shows you a mechanism is available for this idea. Now with a full aero fairing you can have low Cd and low frontal area too without having a poor handling death trap.

Tilting Motor Works - High-performance trike kit for your Harley®

Imagine the engine set aft of the rider and the rider sitting much lower to the ground. Much reduced frontal area.

[Sven7]

Why do you say they're unstable? I don't think any of us will be driving high-powered trikes and flipping them accelerating out of corners.

[HydroJim]

One could argue that reverse trikes are in fact more stable when corning since the rear wheel stays planted while on a 4 wheel car, the trailing wheel has a tendency to come off the ground. On a trike, the car is trying to flip itself over the front tire in a turn. This means, that the turn would have to generate enough force to lift the vehicle up and over the axis of the front wheel. On a 4 wheeled vehicle, the force generated by the turn only has to be enough to roll the car over onto it's side. As long as the trike is properly designed, a trike is just as stable as a 4 wheeled vehicle in a turn. The only negative of trikes is for the back end to break loose, but with less weight in the back, this effect in somewhat nullified. If you're taking turns in normal driving fast enough to cause the back end to break loose, you need to reevaluate your driving and not your vehicle.

Again, with proper design and weight proportions, a trike can out handle a 4 wheel drive vehicle any day.

[freebeard]

Agreed. A trike isn't trying to lift the inside wheel on the front or back as a 4-wheeler is.

That said, I wonder about 3-wheel steering. The front wheels would be the primary, with the rear wheel a trim-tab that could move a limited amount.

Think the Original Poster will be back? I still like the Blurple one.

[godscountry]

Originally Posted by Big Dave

Three wheel "reverse tricycle" vehicles are necessarily unstable. Why not put that to work for you and rather than have a three wheel car have a reverse trike motorcycle that tilts into a curve or crosswind like a motorcycle.

This guy offers a reverse trike conversion for Harley Road Kings. At least it shows you a mechanism is available for this idea. Now with a full aero fairing you can have low Cd and low frontal area too without having a poor handling death trap.

Tilting Motor Works - High-performance trike kit for your Harley®

Imagine the engine set aft of the rider and the rider sitting much lower to the ground. Much reduced frontal area.

With a little work,side wind loading and its effect can be reduced to the point it's not a big problem.From what I see looking at research paper's,you want a larger area behind the center of gravity,picture a arrow with feather's.I have read a lot about Peraves Monotracer,but little about it having side wind problems.Craig Vetter say's the opening on his streamlined Helix,helps,in reality it could just be [masking another problem]maybe the short wheel base, in relation to the center of gravity and how much surface area is behind it .I'm no expert but it would be fun to know.I just always picture a arrow flying through the air,a big surface area,feathers behind the CG keeps it straight and true in its flight path.Like Craig always say's,it's easy to say,but hard to do.

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by Big Dave View Post
Three wheel "reverse tricycle" vehicles are necessarily unstable. Why not put that to work for you and rather than have a three wheel car have a reverse trike motorcycle that tilts into a curve or crosswind like a motorcycle.

That's arguing from a faulty premise.

I don't have a reference, but I read an interesting discussion among people who race streamlined motorcycles—about the difference between 'sit on' and 'sit in' two-wheelers. What it comes down to is if you can't shift your body weight to initiate a turn, you have to veer left to start the lean, and then back right to catch it.

Would three-wheel carvers share this trait?

When they leave perpendicular, doesn't that narrow the effective track? For sure they upset the tire contact patch so you'd need narrow contact motorcycle tires designed to run up on the sidewall.

Although...I guess people get them to work.

Roll center above the center of gravity, right?

[Smurf]

(My apologies to anyone on dialup internet)
I was the one who suggested Calfianu start a thread for our vehicle designs, so I suppose I should probably contribute, eh?











Unfortunately, I have no welding ability, no garage, no space, no funds.. Just one helluva imagination. All of these were drawn with Google SketchUp 8 Pro, no formal training just trial and error until it looked 'decent'.

[elhigh]

Wow, you guys all have all these computer drawing skillz, all I have is a .9mm pencil and quad rule. Many less-than-riveting class lectures were disregarded as I tried to "design" cars I thought would be, at first, "cool," then I started to idealize.

Smurf, I love your trike! It looks like a reimagined HMV Freeway. I bet we could build some featherlight Freeway-esque trikes with Coroplast body panels.

[botsapper]

DyMax II trike doodle. http://i.imgur.com/imWGex3.jpg