tfaith08

That’s for the fronts Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Don’t quote me… but the best I can recall is 14.43 by their spec, which would be 14.4375 specifically or 14-7/16. Basically, 14.5. Word on the street is that it takes a different lower rod end. Truth be told, no shock manufacturer that I know of makes model-specific rod ends for every model. In the case of ATVs, shocks are typically sold at half inch lengths with inch increments (14.5, 15.5, 16.5, etc.) and use a narrow top cap and rod end and different width bushings to make up the difference to the mounting locations. They’re commonly half inch wide. So if you need a 1” wide rod end on bottom, you’d need 2 spacers to make up that difference. I also have no idea if different bushings fit different models because I haven’t gotten that bored, but any Elka service center will have a handful in stock. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I’m not trying to piss on what you’re doing but I think you really need to sit down and re-evaluate this from a task-by-task start to finish standpoint. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It sure is. Got a desert design ready to go. Pm me or text me if you don’t mind, I don’t wanna hijack this fella’s thread too much. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I can tell you right now that if you’re at the point of coming up with what it is that you want to offer, you’ve got a lot to contend with in the coming months/years. If you can get a frame out the door for $1500 and break even, then it either isn’t good steel, the tabs are going to rip off, it won’t pass x-ray, or it isn’t going to be accurate at all. The weld count and material alone will cost that plan out. If I had to do a run of OEM geometry banshee frames that wouldn’t have me sweating in a courtroom, they’d be sitting at over $4k/pop. Yeah Lonestar does it for $3k but they have a legal team, in house QC, every welder has company certs, every batch of wire is accounted for, every stick of tube has paperwork, and a whole wad of engineerings are running around scared to death to put stamps on anything. If you change even the weld procedure from what any existing chassis has, their engineering stamp no longer applies to you and it probably wasn’t good enough for today’s standards to begin with. Do you know what filler wire Laeger’s used 15 years ago? I don’t and Mark probably doesn’t remember. Mark Laeger and Doug Roll did this shit 20 years ago when it didn’t really matter. Times are different. Laeger’s also had 250R geometry but it wasn’t actually 250R geometry. To my knowledge, there was only 250R geometry aftermarket frame ever made that was true 250R geometry. Mine is the same with the YFZR. Laeger’s pro trax front end was great but you don’t need a protrax front end in any way. What made them great was nothing you couldn’t do with just good hardware on stock knuckles and 1 more modification. I know that last sentence is going to compel people to say I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I don’t give a shit because I dont make fabrication and engineering decisions based on “seems like” or “feels like.” Now I’m not going to go into how to solve all of these problems because at this point you’ve established yourself as a direct competitor of mine, but for every 12 hours I spend in my shop, 3 more go to properly documenting it and another 3 on the phone sorting out just what the hell has to be done to make sure that I’m not going to spend the rest of my life paying someone’s family that died on one of my frames because they wanted to get shitty drunk at the fall ride in some desert in Oklahoma and jump 3 toy haulers for 80 views on YouTube (yes Dave but also not Dave). I see what you’re wanting to do but also consider that your market will have people that you’re gonna have to really, really impress or people that aren’t gonna pay because they don’t know what they’re looking at. Let’s also remember that Apex (not sure if that’s the correct name) did sell a turn key YFZ based race quad that used a lot of factory stuff and it was absolutely wicked on a track but literally no one bought them. Why? $14999. People would rather pay $20000 over 5 years than to pay $14999 once. By far the biggest thing to me personally is that if you understand suspension geometry and vehicle dynamics, why are you stealing a design? I’ll be able to point at my chassis and look someone in their eyes and say, “See that? I made that shit.” That’s something you can’t buy and you certainly can’t steal it. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I’ve had my feet on all the different nerds. Factory 43 is worth every cent. Need a shorter shifter and maybe a brake lever depending on how you brake. I usually stand on the brake lever when I use it so I don’t need it quite as long. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I mean you pretty well have it wrapped up. Biggest thing I can add is to go with nerfs that have race position pegs, gripper seat, 4/1 rims, make sure the suspension and alignment is dialed in, and cut as much weight off as possible, especially off the front. Roll your controls down a little more than normal as well. Above all else, you want to get comfortable at riding aggressively. A lot of people unintentionally hold their breath during corners or jumps. Once you do that, you can really start to identify what needs to be fixed as far as ergonomics go. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I never really remember any formula I write and have to derive them in my head every time. I made a mistake with post formula error correction above and can’t edit the comment. I quoted the original comment and fixed it in the quoted section. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Toe is probably the most complicated of all alignments to understand. The absolute most simple way to explain it is that toe should be set to a conservative value AND that when possible, it should point directly at SAC. In reality, this will almost never happen but when it does, it will handle like no other. If you don’t understand any of the previous post, please go back and read it because it is important to understanding all of this. If your scrub radius is too large, there is nothing you can do with toe to make it stable. Just point the tires slightly inward and hope for the best. There is no patch. You have to start swapping parts. If the SAC falls outside the tire (negative scrub), toe in will make the quad wobble at speed and slight weight imbalance will make the quad push steer away from obstacles. If inside (positive scrub), it will still wobble at speed and the quad will steer into obstacles. These will persist no matter what the toe setting is and is one huge reason scrub radius matters so much. If your SAC is wider than the contact patch, bias your toe more parallel. If narrower, bias inward. The mechanic behind this is that the tire wants to align itself to where the SAC is between itself and the forces being introduced. If the scrub is positive, the tire has to rotate inward to make this happen, but the direction of the tire centerline wants to keep the tire going in the direction the tire is facing. This imbalance doesn’t cancel out except for sometimes at high speed (and only on smooth surfaces with little traction), but it will just bounce between the two far more often than not. It will bounce quickly and feel like tire shake. I’d scrub is negative, the same mechanic is prevalent but the tire wants to turn outward while the forces acting on it want to make it fall inward. The shake will still occur all the same but it’ll just want to turn outward first. At the frequency at which this occurs, you don’t care which happens first; all you see is tire shake and darting back and forth. In a sense, the tire is always searching for its natural point to turn. I like to use the term “hunting.” Slip angles matter too. Without a picture to add, it’s probably best to google image search “tire slip angle” but the basic idea is that the contact patch has its own direction that varies from the overall tire direction. You want minimum slip angle but maximum slip angle capability. More pressure cuts down on slip angle but reduces capability. Less pressure increases both. I’m personally a fan of very high pressure because it gives good rider feel (which typically comes from positive scrub radius in power steering equipped setups. More pressure also reduces contact patch variation and mobility which makes adjustments more noticeable and effective. Reduced pressure is the last step to achieving a good grip but is one of the first steps required in alignment and setup. Set it high, dial it in perfectly, then consider dropping pressure slightly if any (I never do). Bigger tires also like a little more toe as well and can hide small issues with scrub radius. Toe in also makes the quad bias the outside tire more in corners. People like to say it makes the quad turn lazily but Ackerman angles overcome this significantly. Parallel toe makes the quad want to drag the inside tire more which isn’t always bad. It will also make a quad track around high speed corners better. Too little toe and it will want to give the inside tire more say in what happens over higher speed obstacles. Try to remember that the quad is going to bias the outside tire in a corner, toe just dictates whether the inside tire is going assist in turning (less load = less slip angle capability) or assist in slowing (dragging). When people say more caster makes the quad harder to steer, 3/4 of that is that the added caster uncovered a problem with the scrub radius and toe not playing well together. Yes, the inside tire is jacking the quad up but you notice little of that when hanging off the side in a corner AND all the weight is typically on the outside tire. In a perfect world, the only toe required is what you need to correct for component flex and rolling slip angle. If you can’t get toe right, you probably need to go back to fixing the scrub radius. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I always mean to add more content as time permits but it never happens. Got a pretty good bit of time on my hands now so I guess I’ll just ramble for a bit about caster, camber, and random diagnostics. Caster targets are pretty simple. There are a lot of misconceptions about caster within the off-road groups and the big companies don’t do much to explain the effects of caster within their installation guides. Not only that but some of the big names are just flat out wrong. I’m not going to name names but I will say that in the past year, I’ve found that I will only take my hat off to three companies: Roll Design, Laeger’s, and Texeria Tech. As with all things suspension, it all boils down to the mathematics. One of my favorite things to say is that the glory of mathematics is that if you don’t like my math, you can do it yourself. So... the only thing that matters with caster is trail. To find trail, follow the formula below: *These values don’t have a commonly used term to denote the variable so a lot of the formulas that I may use have variations in naming but the math is the same.* C = caster in degrees S = spindle height in inches CA = camber in degrees T = trail in inches S(SinC/cosCA) = TR Spindle height is of important note here. How much trail you have is directly influenced by how the tire is compressed. Mark the tire and check rollout with your weight on it. Either put the quad on the ground and drive forward or put the same weight on the pegs and push it. To check rollout, mark the sidewall of the tire and mark the ground under that point, then roll forward and mark the second point it touches the ground and measure the distance between the marks on the ground. It’s best to do it 4-5 times and divide the distance the same number of times. This just makes for a more accurate measurement. Once you do that, just divide by 2 pi. You also have to factor camber into it since every degree of camber increases the steering axis length, which is what part of that formula above derives as the hypotenuse length. To find target caster, follow the formula below: WB = wheelbase in inches R = rake in degrees C = caster in degrees RH = ride height in inches MC = minimum clearance E = error factor in degrees MC should be +1” for TT and FT, 2” for desert, and 1.75” for all others. E is an error factor for unforeseen circumstances. Rough terrain, add a degree. Smooth terrain, remove a degree. Average terrain, do nothing. New and expert riders (be honest with yourself) add a degree. Everyone else, so nothing. SinC = (RH-MC)/(WB-sinR(RH-MC)) C+E = target Best way to picture all of this is that when viewed from above, the steering axis contacts the ground (coining the phrase “steering axis contact” or SAC now) at a different point than the tire contact patch. The forward component is trail and is derived largely from caster, while the outward component is scrub radius and is derived largely by KPI, camber, and offset. Each affects the SAC while toe rotates the contact patch around the SAC. If there is ever anything I’ve said about front suspension that I would call the most important, it’s the above paragraph. When most paper suspension setup guides that come with a suspension kit are written, they’re too simplistic. Yes, toe increases stability as per the LSR guide, the Walsh guide, etc. but only if the rest of your setup is within the correct parameters. Sometimes, parallel toe gives you more stability than some toe (and I can explain why in my sleep) and sometimes too much toe works out just fine somehow. Go look at the guide and all it says is that toe increases stability. Same with caster. Too much caster is going to make the quad a living nightmare in the rough stuff. I’m not going to say who, but you can take the guides from more than one top company and put them side by side and the wording, step by step order, and even one particular punctuation error matches up identically across three of them. I digress. What I’m trying to get at is that your circumstances on your quad and with your components and how you ride and where you ride all matter to setup. I’m just here to educate. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Shit yeah, I’ll send a PM. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Lol a lot of people either bolt it on and call it golden or they get lost in it and spend money unnecessarily. Also, no problem at all on the help and time. A lot of my effort in helping out goes back into trying to sift through gaps in what I know and understand. 4-5 years ago, I sat down and thought that I was a few ideas away from being out of things to learn about suspension. Now I’m one step away from a meltdown because of all the things I’m trying to figure out with it lol. Tool and die maker? I may have a few jobs for you at some point if you’re interested. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I know a lot more now than I knew then and I can probably help more on a case by case basis than that write up. Plus I’ll probably add to it in the future. I prefer to block everything to get to ride height and then set measurements, then bolt the shocks on and set them to ride height. Makes it much easier and faster. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The formula is essentially how to find the distance from the center of the tire to the steering pivot (KPI, Caster, and camber) AT WHEEL VERTICAL CENTER. It’s only real utility It’s pretty useless outside of comparing numbers unless you take the time to measure effective offsets vs. tire heights. Either way, it’s as follows: IA = KPI + camber in degrees C = Caster TRH = tire center rolling height TRH x sec C x sin IA Tire center rolling height is rollout while loaded on the quad divided by 2pi. This eliminates any effects due to tires compressing under load. Since we haven’t measured that, we’ll just call it half the tire diameter. I don’t know the KPI of a stock banshee off the top of my head but a YFZR is 15.3. Add in 2 degrees of camber and 6 degrees of caster with a 21” tire and you get this: 10.5 x sec 6 x sin 17.3 = 3.141” Compare that to a 23” tire and 3 degrees of camber and 7 degrees of caster: 11.5 x sec 7 x sin 18.3 = 3.638” This means that when switching those setups around and using the same offset rim, your scrub radius has moved by .497” You still have to plot it out and take accurate measurements, but it just goes to show that not everything is as simple as face value. This is why it is often the case that another PSI in the front tires and another degree of camber can sometimes amount to nothing and sometimes completely wake a front end up. Getting your scrub radius as close to zero as possible is easily the biggest bang for your buck improvement on a front end. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If the tires you have now are working, I say stick with them. Any suspension setup should be done starting with the tire anyway. I just personally don’t like the ride height that high because of how it rides in more technical high speed settings. The KPI is typically geared around getting the scrub radius to the target with the stock tire size. However, adding caster will increase scrub radius as well. This is where it gets extremely hard to visualize, especially without drawings of some sort. I don’t know the math off the top of my head for it, let me see if I can figure it out really quick and get back to you. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Use some blocks and hold off on installing the shocks and youl save a lot of time with alignment. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

9” ride height is kind of pushing it imo. Rake is the angle that the lower arms mount to the frame at when viewed from the side. It farting side to side suggests either a camber or toe issue. I’m personally leaning toward toe die to bump steer. Are you setting toe at ride height? With an arm angle that’s too steep, any side forces on the tire can compress or extend the suspension. This is compounded by taller tires but the effect is more sluggish. I’d personally bump it down to around 8 but that’s just me. A lot of the pro XC guys are 7.5-8.25 in the front. Also, where are you measuring the ride height? Minimum clearance is usually a result of tire compressibility and terrain. Smooth MX and TT/FT can get away with 1.25-1.5” minimum ground clearance and most others require around 1.75”. For desert racing, 2” is a good number. As for measuring caster, there are a few details. As long as you’re at ride height or the lower frame rails are parallel to where they are at ride height, you can set the caster accurately. Make sure the tire is dead straight ahead. You don’t want to factor toe in for this, so set the tire straight and not the bars. If you mistakenly factor toe in, you’ll be measuring KPI as well. After that, line the lug nuts up with the ball joints and measure there. Throw a zip tie around the brake lever to help hold it. Then just an angle finder or a ruler and spirit level with some trig. Be wary of anything that isn’t a dedicated angle finder. I’ve got a solid dozen spirit levels with a rotating bubble for angles and every one of them read differently. One is as much as 3 degrees off. Empire is usually the closest if you must use it. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Get that back to me if you will. To find target caster, see below: C = caster in degrees RH = ride height MC = minimum ground clearance (usually 1.75” UT = up travel (RH-MC) WB = wheelbase R = rake in degrees SinC = UT/(WB-{UT x sinR}) For smooth terrain, subtract 2 degrees For normal terrain, subtract a degree For lower tire pressures, add a degree Stock wheelbase and 7.25” ride height gives a caster target of 6.92 Stock WB and 7” RH gives 6.63 +1 WB and 7.25” RH gives 6.78 +1 WB and 7” RH gives 6.49 I also don’t know what swingarm you’re running but a +4 is common. Paired with +1 forward arms and a 7” ride height, you get 6 degrees of caster. Ride height, rough terrain, and softer tires dictate caster requirement. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

10-1/4” with you on it? The bump steer you’ll run into is going to make that rough. Generally, you want to set your ride height for the terrain and then bias it toward the center of the bump steer curve. That takes a ton of work to sort out in some cases but isn’t a total nightmare. I’d personally never run 10-1/4” unless I was in the 15” vertical travel range or more. You get into something called full dynamic load, which is where you’re under the most extreme dive you’ll experience under braking. At that point, you want a no shit minimum of 1 degree of caster. Once you have that set, you let your caster be whatever it is at ride height. The trick with caster is basically a matter of two things: A. How it plays with KPI on the outside tire and affects camber B. Trail (what we’ll talk about here) To find trail, look at the quad from the side. Then draw a line through your ball joints and extend it to the ground. The distance from that point to the center of your contact patch is trail. The more trail, the more the quad wants to track straight ahead. This does play with toe to a significant extent but how toe pertains to trail and scrub radius is immensely complicated without diving into the math. Now that you can see trail, you may also be able to visualize how trail reduces on dive and increases on droop, as well as how trail drops when you hit a bump and increases off the face of the bump. Back to full dynamic load, you can see that caster approaches the vertical plane as you hit a full dive. One of your few hard rules in suspension geometry is that caster should never go past vertical. So the correct way to set caster is to work from full dynamic load. I’ll help more when I’m not fighting sleep and can contribute more, but you’ll be giving up more than you gain with a ride height that high for the width you’re at. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Build quality and hardware quality. I’d personally figure out what your caster should be and just leave it. When it’s time to replace the hardware, order FK rod ends. Give me your ride height and swingarm length and I’ll tell you what it should be. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah I probably am. But when I get down to where all I do is sand drag racing and running a Facebook group, I’ll keep your advice in mind. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Those solid lower mount bungs are going to be cut back and have bushings. I couldn’t verify accurate mounts without bolting directly to the engine first. The way the lowers sit is incomplete. Their current state is a manufacturing necessity. They’re also a stressed unit. The fronts ARE removable and require more left/right dimension because of how I have to make the rear mount. They are also not done. It’s also cheaper, far stronger, and tubular front mounts always look better than billet in my opinion. I considered billet aluminum and scrapped it. Also considered 4130 plate and scrapped it. I didn’t just sit around and go with the first idea I thought up. I designed and scrapped a solid 2 dozen configurations before I settled on one. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This chassis is somewhat close to the stock YFZR geometry but in all honesty, the only actual stock geometry components are the knuckles. Everything else has been altered in some sort of way. I also have 4 other projects on my bench at the moment. Of all 5, 4 are chassis conversions or full chassis builds. The 5th is my yellow YFZR that was stolen a few years ago. It needs about $6k in work. One of the projects is super secret at the moment unless the other guy wants to say something. Another is a YFZR Banshee hybrid. The newest is an all aftermarket geometry desert build. It’ll use YFZR brakes, fenders and seat, and axle components. Everything else is drastically different and doesn’t resemble any other quad geometry. Every single one is waiting on chromoly. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Mounts are not done. Waiting on tube at this time. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That’s right on the CPIs. Probably won’t be too happy with the way they look but it’ll be good enough if they don’t crack at the toes of the welds. The metal is soft and I used the softest filler I had. One pic of the front engine mounts. Pretty proud of that little weld. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk