[todayican]

I am curious, in looking for the most aerodynamic "potentially practical" body design for my next trike, I am becoming enamored by the 1 liter, largely because body design scares me and is beyond my abilities, and with 100km (67mi) for a liter of fuel, its super impressive as an ICE.

So here is what I am wondering:

If there were a 1 liter replica out there as a kit that you would install your own drive system into and paint but was otherwise complete, A) would there be a market for 3 to 5 a month? and B) What would people pay for the "roller"?

Also, do you guys think its more important to make it look like the 1 liter for "replica value" or more unique? for example headlight placement etc?

I understand that it would go from a 4 wheeler to a trike, but no body changes would be absolutely nessassary to accomplish this, save possibly going 4 or 5" eider in the nose and a few inches narrower in the tail.

One more thing, any other 'concept cars" with ridiculusly good aero come to mind to replicate?

 

[bart_dood]

Its a lot of working making something from scratch, I was inspired like you to make my own vw 1 liter type vehicle about 18 months ago, it was based off a three wheeled design (two in front) and a carbon fiber/glass fiber molded body.
I blended the vw 1 liter design with a little art deco to give a more pleasing look; I did a plaster hand model and then started designing a body in CAD.
If I can find my work and take some screen shots I'll post them in this thread.

I stopped working on it due to the realization of how much work it is building molds and making molded parts, its very labor intensive and is only worth it if you make lots of parts from the molds.

 

[todayican]

I agree on the hard work required, particularly in the body, one thing I was thinking potentially is vacuum forming?

I have a canopy guy who is a miracle worker, and can do 96" x 55" I wonder if something can be done on that front canopy + upper body + lower body + tail section? using his canopy pricing as a guide, were talking 1000 to 1200.

Does anyone have proper "3 view" drawings of this car?

 

[todayican]

I agree on the hard work required, particularly in the body, one thing I was thinking potentially is vacuum forming?

I have a canopy guy who is a miracle worker, and can do 96" x 55" I wonder if something can be done on that front canopy + upper body + lower body + tail section? using his canopy pricing as a guide, were talking 1000 to 1200.

Does anyone have proper "3 view" drawings of this car?

 

[The Toecutter]

Jerry Dycus was working on something similar to what you propose, called the "Freedom EV", but made of wood.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_EV

http://www.dycustechnologies.com/

***edit***

An excellent 70 mpg gasoline trike to draw inspiration from is the Tryane II.

http://jalopnik.com/384733/tryane-ii-continues-march-of-wooden-cars

http://home.clara.net/peterfrost/tryaneii.html

If you had a car like the Tryane II, a 300 lbs 72V 180AH China Aviation LiFePO4 pack, an Alltrax 7245 controller, and an ADC 8" motor are all you would need to have an 80+ mph capable, 120 mile range EV(to 80% DoD) that weighed in at around 1200 lbs and did 0-60 mph < 15 seconds. The EV parts would cost around $6,000 if you get working but used parts, and buy the batteries new. As a production car, it would probably cost $15,000 or so to hand build a turnkey model.

 

[Guest]

I stopped working on it due to the realization of how much work it is building molds and making molded parts, its very labor intensive and is only worth it if you make lots of parts from the molds.

Too bad, hard work is what will make it a reality. Far to many start and stop when they realize the scope but it's that scope that needs to be done. Far too many want but are not willing to work to get it. I do not have the skill set to do that. You sound like you do.

You should pursue your course. If you don't have the funds that is another matter.

Pete

 

[Duncan]

Hi Today

There are several different ways of making composite shells
Look up - Mouldless techniques

Bert Rutan (of Spaceship 1 fame) made a lot of his aircraft using mouldless techniques

The high school solar car I worked on (Solar Stealth 2) was made using mouldless techniques

The basic idea is to carve foam to the shape you want and then skin it with fiber glass
(you can use carbon fiber BUT it will cost more and probably have a lower strength/weight ratio)

If you skin the inside as well you get a massively strong and light composite

http://www.amazon.com/Moldless-Composite-Sandwich-Aircraft-Construction/dp/B000BUJP5A

 

[bart_dood]

Here you go, a few screengrabs from my pro/e work on the concept. Two seater one in front of the other, two wheels at the front and swooping fenders.
I always liked a little art deco

 

[INCONCEIVABLE]

Have you seen this one? He worked hard on the aerodynamics.
http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthread.php/ultimate-aerodynamic-car-dave-clouds-dolphin-13142.html
This was built buy Dave Cloud, a friend in our local Seattle EV club.
He went 201 miles mostly on highway, all electric, lead acid batteries.

Eric.

 

[TomA]

Hi Tom!

Have you taken a close look at the Trev out of Australia?

http://teamtrev.com/about/

Its open source, and built on a budget without hard core composite tools like vacuum forming.

TomA

 

[todayican]

Hi Tom A! How have you been?
I like the TREV a lot, I like steel a little better then all that newfangled bent aluminum composite for some reason, perhaps its the latent ******* in me ;-)

After beating myself over the head for weeks ive settled on a front suspension design, almost bone stock (except new) vw ball joint beam with a few tweaks:

center steer with a rack & pinion
Coilovers instead of the torsion leaves
about 17" of the top removed and "framed around" to get the front riders feet out about 16" ahead of wheel centerline

Im trying to design the body in such a way that I wont have to do any carving of foam (Hate that) lol

Some ideas include:

Giving a cool 3d drawing to a guy with a fancy computer mill (expensive)

using an aviation canopy and going with thin plywood with a glass layer (angular lines on the main body)

One idea I had is having the canopy guy do a "body canopy" where I would have about 10" of strait lines at the bottom, then have one big graceful compound curve forming the upper body level. This could actually be vacuum formed im guessing?

Tom B