tfaith08

The project is still green lit. Biggest holdup is chromoly supply and other projects. I redesigned the chassis and am much more satisfied with it at the moment. Will post pictures when I have more service (backwoods Alabama) Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The scrub radius will change very, very slightly with more camber. The combination of KPI and camber is called included radius. Too much camber can make it feel a little weird. I kind of like a touch more camber than most but I ride very recklessly. Too much toe will feel very weird at speed and isn’t really important at lower speeds. I’ll set toe dead straight if I’m riding in tight and technical stuff. The only real benefit of too much toe is that it can correct a setup with too much Ackerman. It tends to hurt a setup if you start really turning them in. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

In regards to the last paragraph, people get a little too hung up on setting toe. I like it just barely toed in enough to be manageable in a straight line at full speed. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Don’t feel sorry. The more information here, the better. Biggest thing that you absolutely cannot overlook is to set tire pressure and get to ride height before you make any measurements. KPI isn’t something you can adjust, it’s just something you have to know and live with. It does dictate a lot of other measurements. After tire pressure and ride height are set, set caster very next. Don’t skip ahead. Then set camber, then toe. Then go back and forth with camber and toe until they’re where you want them. Too low caster can make it feel squirrelly, but it typically only happens with a bump. Better way to say it is that the less caster you run, the smaller the bump it takes to kick the steering (even a small amount). This is why it’s critical to make sure you’re running a tire and run setup with low scrub radius. Camber is pretty simple. Strap the front end down to about 3/4 compressed (or so, 2/3 is fine too) and turn the turn the tires close to full lock (full lock if you actually turn full lock while riding. Not many riders actually do). The outside tire should absolutely never go past the vertical plane. The top should still be leaned in just a touch. Toe, just set it straight and turn it in a little at a time. People get a little too hung up on measurements and what not. It actually plays a little with Ackerman so I’ll try to add more on that later. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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In a banshee chassis, I agree 100%. I have way more room in this chassis to get stuff done though. Upper frame rails are several inches higher. This tank comes off with one bolt so I’d have that option as well. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Super long day. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

At a good point to mount the engine. I’ve mocked it in there to make sure the pipes will physically fit and I can’t find any problems (other than welding .040 wall steel). Still have to weld the chassis out. Got a few places with bigger gaps than I’d like but the filler is softer than the base metal and I’m not scared of filling a gap. I can verify penetration that way. It looks like a 03-04 Yamaha R6 radiator is going to be almost perfect. It’ll sit right behind the steering stem. Gas tank has some interference but I’m going to heat it up and mold it around the problem areas. Should be sitting at 2.4-2.5 gallons once it’s all said and done. Picked out the powdercoat this morning. I’m super excited about it tbh. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Not much else in the world that gets me excited quite like a desert racing build. Lmk if you need help bud Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Pics are coming tomorrow. Got a cleaning day after work and have to restock on some consumables and argon, but I’ll try to remember to snag a few. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The hybrid is back on the list of priorities. Life happened hard this year. Getting back to it. Haven’t taken a lot of pics but this is what I have so far: I have a lot of progress since I took these. Still have a lot to do but the big stuff is done on the chassis. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

How to plan a chassis build If you need more detail, let me know. In order: Pick tires based on ground clearance required Pick knuckles. 9/10 will be your OEM ones. Pick rims to get KPI where you want it Pick arms for length to get the width you want Pick axle length to match front width at ride heigh Pick swingarm length Choose shocks LAST All the details are listed in previous posts Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No problem at all. It’s probably the least discussed element in amateur racing and someone has to do it. I just happen to enjoy it. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No idea. Honestly, my affinity for JL was from years ago when I built my MX banshee and from talking to people I trust, but the most recent interaction I’ve had with anything JL was around 2018. If there is some sort of relationship between Vito’s and JL, it’s totally news to me. They may sell his stuff but idk to be honest. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I honestly don’t know much about AS arms. I rarely ever see them. Most swingarms are fine. Not because they’re engineered correctly, but because the manufacturers are scared for them to break and compensate with greater wall thickness. I’m going to develop a swingarm at some point, but I’m working on a chassis design at the moment. The hard part isn’t bending, it’s twisting. For that, I like a round tube lattice instead of box tube. I personally love JL Engineering swingarms. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I’m glad it helped bud. That’s exactly what I’m here for. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Too much offset (flipping rims and or using wheel spacers) will mean you can’t get enough toe or caster to keep the quad steering straight for shit. If you wonder why, I’m sure I posted earlier but... King pin inclination (KPI or also known as SAI - steering angle axis) is the line drawn through the ball joints when viewed from the front, and the line should extend to the ground. The common term these days is SAI but I call it KPI out of habit and both are equally correct. KPI should always fall as close to the center of the contact patch as possible. The distance between KPI and the center of the contact patch is called scrub radius. If caster trail is the X component, scrub radius is the Y component. If it falls inside, steering will take even more effort with added caster and you’ll fight the steering more. Impacts will hit harder and the ball joints will wear faster. You’ll also cause the tie rods to buckle some under impacts and hard braking (it’ll feel loose and somewhat difficult to find a good balance on corner entry). You don’t adjust KPI, you adjust your tire and rim selection. Since any performance vehicle is designed starting with the contact patch and ending at the driver, this is a no brainer anyway. Taller tires, less air pressure, and less offset reduce the scrub radius. Inversely, shorter tires, more pressure, and more offset increase scrub radius. Want zero scrub radius. Period. High speed race cars want more scrub radius and more caster angle for feel because you can feel the limit of traction more easily. Off-road setups don’t need feel, they need ease of operation, durability, and predictability. Different knuckles have different KPIs. I don’t know any of them off hand since I just deal with YFZR components now. Don’t worry about swapping knuckles unless you have a good deal for all the components necessary. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I’ll make a post for every new question that pops up. Full flight is shit. Alba is diarrhea shit. eBay suspension anything is a step below alba. Fireball, LSR, Roll, Laeger’s are top notch. The reasons for this are simple in some cases and in some cases not. Most arms are made of 4130. 4130 is the go to choice for high grade steel for suspension components in race quads. It differs from regular steel in that it contains around 1% chromium and 0.1% molybdenum and is considered a low-carbon alloy. That tiny little bit of chromium and molybdenum is worth another 30-35% strength over typical grades of steel, as well as good durability and flexibility. It welds great too. It does need to be post treated after welding for good strength, but not doing so is fine as long as you use a thick enough wall thickness to not require it. Basically, post treat means you can get away with a thinner wall and save weight. Stainless arms as seen on eBay are NOT a good option. Some grades of stainless (Reynolds 953 is stainless and is my all time favorite material for critical structures but it is difficult to weld and insanely expensive and is superior to even titanium in every way) are fine, but the only material that is cheap enough to make arms for THAT price is 304 at best, which is already more difficult to weld and isn’t strong at all. Stainless arms are extremely unsafe. Not all 4130 is the same. American and German are the top choices. Some Chinese steel marketed as 4130 is no different than regular steel. Don’t trust it. But... how else can you make arms for as cheap as alba and full flight? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Additional notes: A lot of my approach and opinions have changed since I started doing my own chassis and suspension fabrication. My main approach is still the same but some specifics are different. Every measurement should be taken at ride height (unless specified otherwise) and tires inflated to whatever you plan on running. Caster should be measured at ride height. There are very few hard rules of suspension, but this is one: caster should NEVER EVER EVER go negative under full dive. Completely compress the front end and check caster. It should be 1-2 degrees (2-3 if you’re an unskilled rider; be honest with yourself here). Caster is often cited as a means of achieving stability but really, every suspension adjustment listed by major manufacturers is listed as a stability adjustment so I guess I’ll have to break it down. Caster’s main job is to achieve a virtual pivot point ahead of the tire for the tire to trail behind. To see this, draw a line through the ball joints to the ground. The distance from this point on the ground straight back to the center of the contact patch is called trail. The more trail you have, the more the weight of the quad returns the steering to zero (center). This is because turning makes the tire push down, which means the quad rises. Gravity takes over and the quad falls back to its lowest point. The trail length dictates the effectiveness of caster. More caster makes the quad harder to steer because steering with caster physically raises the quad itself. Aka, turning = lifting the quad. It doesn’t turn faster, it doesn’t make it more nimble, none of that shit. It just adds resistance to turning. TT setups don’t have much suspension and therefore don’t require much caster. Desert setups have a ton of travel and bigger tires and are therefore prone to being in a more extreme dive. Lower tire pressures require more caster. As a tire flattens on impact, it’s contact patch is pushed in effectively making the tire smaller for all intents and purposes. As the diameter decreases, the trail length becomes shorter. A better idea is to take the pressure out of the tires until they’re completely flat and take the same measurements. You’ll see that caster has to be increased to get the proper trail length. Examples: 23” tire at 5psi and 12” of travel at 8” front ride height (damn near a trophy quad) will need 8-9 degrees of caster for super rough terrain and hard whoops). Dropping ride height to 7” will need 7-8. Higher tire pressures can drop another degree as well. 20” tire at 8psi and 10” of wheel travel at 7” front ride height (MX setup) will need roughly 4-6 depending on the condition of the whoops pack. 20” tire at 10psi and 7” wheel travel at 6” front ride height (TT) will need around 2-4 degrees depending on how much front grip you have (will make you dive harder under braking). Camber isn’t tricky. Simulate a 3/4 front dive and turn the tires to full lock. The tire shouldn’t be vertical. It should still have some negative camber. This is another fundamental rule that shall not be violated. More caster will require less camber. Play around with it and see. It’s hard to give a visual intuition here. Tires have a natural tendency to not sit as flat on the ground as you’d suspect. With weight, they deflect. Camber is there to make the deflected tire give a good contact patch. A vertical tire will have the tire pushing down more on its outside portion which will make the tire roll in on a hard corner. The only thing keeping the tire under its optimal dimension at this point is the strength of the rubber. This severely cuts cornering speed because the center of the contact patch moves inward. Slip angle (the angle between the overall direction of the tire and the direction of the distorted contact patch due to stress) is also dramatically affected. Camber has a minimum amount. Each tire, each setup, each condition, and pressure setting will require different camber settings, but the hard rule of thumb here is that in a hard dive at full lock, the tire should still have a touch of camber in relation to the ground. For higher pressure, 3/32” is where I go. For lower pressure, 5/32”. For larger tires, add 1/32”. Excessive camber can cut braking speeds but I firmly state that 95% of all riders brake at roughly half of the peak braking capability of the quad, so don’t think you need to find some Goldilocks zone for camber. Go back to the hard rule of never allowing positive camber at any point, ever. Higher berms can require more camber but only if you’re half on the berm and half off. Even then, add 1/16”. Toe is pretty simple here. Too much can make it steer with less precision. Too little is rarely a problem. I personally shoot for 1/8” unless I’m doing something where I’ll be running 70mph or more. Even then, it’s a 50/50 I don’t touch it. For technical trails and up to 30-40mph stuff, I’m half prone to toe it straight or even just barely toed out. It gets twitchy but that matches the way I ride. A huge misunderstanding here is how toe is measured. I personally measure perpendicular from the caster angle to a common point on the chassis. Honestly, doing it at 3 o’clock vs perpendicular to the caster angle is worth a few thousandths. Tire wear, a shitty tape measure, not getting correct ride height, and a poor measurement by the person measuring it are worth more than how is commonly measured vs how I measure, so it isn’t THAT critical. My experience in fields requiring extremely precise measurement mean that I have a slight obsession with accuracy and I also understand that a .010” error here can cause a 1/2” error down the road. Either way, measuring from one tire to the chassis is less than measuring from 3 on one tire to 3 on the other tire, then subtracting the measurement from 9 on one tire to 9 on another. By less, I mean it’s 1/4 the difference. So my 1/16” setting is the equivalent to 1/4” for others. The number doesn’t mean shit, the result is what matters. The measurement is just a means to the result. Also, make sure you set the handlebars straight and FIX THEM IN PLACE for all steering and suspension adjustments. Ratchet straps are a good idea. People will often say toe is good and equal when it steers straight, but caster can have the same result. Perfect toe and imperfect caster mimic one another in the straight line look ma no hands test. So does tire pressure, unequal preload, and a bent frame. One thing I do with pipefitting and chassis engineering is how I annotate accurate measurements. Make a good measurement, write it down. Check it until you’re absolutely certain, then go put a check by your measurement. Never put a check by a written measurement that you wouldn’t put your reputation on. That check is your way to not worry. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You’ve probably found a solution by now. Life shit happened and I stepped away from the off-road crowd for a while. Getting back to it now. I’m mainly coming back to answer more reoccurring questions that I keep getting so that I can link this thread with a good consolidated source of answers. As for your question... Take the shocks off. Air the tires up to the correct pressure. Lay the frame rails down on 2x4s. One under the frame rails at the foot pegs, one all the way forward just before the frame rakes up just behind the lower arm mount. The reason you do this is because that’s about how much room you’ll have at full compression. The tires compressing will take up the last little bit. Measure from the center of the upper shock mount hole to the center of the a-arm shock mount hole (or top of hole to top of hole OR bottom of hole to bottom of hole). This is your compressed length measurement. Lift the quad up off the ground and measure again. This will give you extended length. If you try to visualize what happens with larger tires, the shock length gets shorter because the arms have to go higher in relation to the rest of the chassis. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Does like, idk... anyone feel like acknowledging that half of these frames have bent in the same exact spots for over 30 years? 5 of the 7 banshees that I’ve set suspension up for this year alone have had one of those two points bent and 1 had both. If you’re going to take the time to strip a frame for powder, spend the one hour and $20 to gusset two spots on the frame or pay your local welder $50 to do it for you. Anyway... if you’re using 4130 or DOM gussets tig welded to mild steel, regular ER70S2 is usually the choice. ER80SD2 and SAE4130 wire can crack around the toe at the base material on mild steel. If you’re gonna mig weld it, I’d say to ask someone else because I can’t mig for shit. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Built OEM will outperform shelf Elka. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Depending on where, absolutely true. Rule of thumb is to never mix ladder design, box design, and space frame design on a chassis. Ladder relies on torsion of the tube. Box relies on bending of the tube. Space frame relies on tension and compression of the tube. The banshee chassis is almost completely box style. You start making it super rigid in some spots and it WILL fail where you don’t. The stem hoop and lower stem mount won’t take any of that extra stress from the rest of the chassis so they don’t apply since it isn’t part of the main structure. Gusset the common fail points, gusset damn near everything, or gusset nothing. Those are the only options I would consider. My choice would be just the basics. Stem hoop, lower stem mount, and (like Dave said) the foot peg mounts. Also, those legacy shocks can be a good setup if you have them setup correctly. I just wouldn’t trust them to be great out of the box. Again, where are you located? I can help with cost and have all the 4130 material you’d ever need just siting at the house. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Biggest problem I have right now is wanting the pipes tucked in. I’ve always hated pipes that stick way out. That leaves so little room for the radiator that it’s not even funny. It’s a huge part of why I’m doing the chromoly setup. 95% sure that I’m gonna have to buy a core and cut it and weld my own ends on it. It isn’t that hard to do, it just takes time and planning. Basic rule of thumb is that you want one square inch of radiator to one horsepower. You can fudge it with a little extra fuel and a good fan and shroud setup, but the whole build starts to get out of hand at some point and it’s better to sit back, start over, and keep it simple. So I’ve settled on probably 8x10 or 7x11. Should be fine. Tube notcher came in last night but I’ve been floored with pipe welding. Should have free time Sunday and I should be able to get the bender and notcher together. May have to make another table for them but that’s no biggie either. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

2’ of 0.065 to 0.095 wall chromoly tube is more than enough. Wicks aircraft supply has it for good prices. Honestly don’t think you need more than 0.065, just may be easier to weld if you go heavier. Just cope it by hand. If you’re close to St. Stephens, AL then just come on by. I’ll do it for free. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk