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SemperChaos

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Posts posted by SemperChaos

  2. Modquad Company review

    in Product Reviews

    Posted

    Aight so here goes. I purchased a metals tech oval tube arm, and a bearing carrier kit from FAST.  There was an issue with the guide pin bushing basically being made for a round tube arm and not being long enough. To be honest, the back and forth from fast could have been a little bit better. But I give them a pass, because they have done right by me on everything I have ordered from them. Now here is the cool part. I called Modquad last week and they were super polite and cool. They understood the issue and shit me out a bushing. I mean like I called them I think tuesday last week and it came in the mail today. Parts incompatibility happens, freaking awesome customer service from modquad. I should probably mention that the bushing they sent me worked perfect. Both Companies will get my business again.

  7. Banshee is a classic now and open to new builds.

    in General Banshee Discussion

    Posted

    I was not trying to sound argumentative. I appreciate your input. For me most of the expense is in the tools. The time aspect for me is not really important(not saying it wont get to be that way). I used to fab chassis, I enjoyed the work, I enjoyed building things. My current career pays good but is boring as hell. There is very little thinking. This is something I am doing for enjoyment, and hopefully it pays for itself. I might finish the first one and go straight back to the drawing board because it sucks. Failure is the best teacher.

    I have been running some math on these front ends, the bump steer is garbage on all of them. There seems to be something to be gained in changing the inner pivot a bit, but short of redesigning the way these things steer there does not seem to be a good solution. On pavement cars we can get that shit perfect, zero change on the RF and a tiny bit of bump out on the LF.  These things bump in massively, that can be made to work if you slice the bike in half and only worry about one corner at a time. but in a straight ahead scenario its going to act like a speed brake. Maybe there is not enough grip to matter, I wont know for awhile.

  8. Banshee is a classic now and open to new builds.

    in General Banshee Discussion

    Posted

    59 minutes ago, tfaith08 said:

    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

    250R A-arms bolt right up to the laeger. I will not have the capacity initially to be making a bunch of different parts. People being able to buy stuff and bolt it on is a good thing. I would not take a design that was being used by someone else and "Steal it". The frames are no longer in production and you cant get them. The plan is to make most of the bike out of 1020 US made DOM, I may decide to use 4130 on the bend bars, There is not that many feet of tubing in a banshee/hybrid frame. Sure if you only buy 3-5 sticks at a time you pay full pop. I have an established relationship with a steel yard and my pricing is good. I would like to keep the cost as low as I can. My cost for a certified welder is 250 a frame. That leaves $250 for tacking it together and fitting all the tubes. I understand your motion ratio reference on the protraxx. My experience comes from circle track chassis. I don't want to necessarily compete with people making expensive frames. I want the frame simple, not to far outside of the box, not alot of "special" parts. Buy it, bolt some shit on and go. "Oh hey, this thing has great pipe clearence and handles good". Thats what I want people to say.

  15. Direct drive cover and water pump cover incompatibility (Possible casting flaw)

    in Product Reviews

    Posted

    Bought one of their new covers with my new motor. Tried a stock water pump cover, a chariot, and a random polished skull one that I have. None of them fit. Now I had already decided that I was going to file my new chariot cover to fit because I didn't feel that it was right to make a company pay like 500 for 2 ways of shipping on my new motor. I called them to say that there was a possible quality escape. A nice lady answered the phone and gave me a number to send a video to. I was not sure what the response was going to be. The response I got was them placing a trimmed cover on one of their covers showing that it fit the one they had.  This did not make much sense because obviously mine was different by how much material I had to remove to make the cover fit. The man who made the video they sent me blamed my covers(including the stock one). I thought this was a poor way to treat a customer. If there was some type of indication that I needed a "special" waterpump cover. I would have just ordered it from the get go. 2 things, I will not be using their products again, and I should have just went with the billet one that FAST sells.

    Side note: I don't know how hard of a aluminum chariot uses, but damn. It took me a solid 3 hours of filing and checking to make it fit. Great quality from chariot.

  16. Banshee is a classic now and open to new builds.

    in General Banshee Discussion

    Posted

    20 hours ago, DDQ said:

    Exactly. The laegers and lonestar chassis' are much better than stock banshee, but it is super old technology and not as good compared to a modern design, like the yfzr. 

    And rear shock change modification can be done to accommodate a yfzr shock to match the yfzr front end, but as tfaith discovered on my frame, the seat pan has to be modified. 

    There is a super duper lot of research and suspension knowledge that goes in to designing a chassis like this, which is why tfaith is doing mine and I am not. I would recommend you buy several oem frames, including a complete yfzr and start measuring and experimenting. Get them on the track, test them, make modifications, etc. 

    The other, easier option is to buy one of those tour de france banshee chassis' you are talking about and try to copy it without getting in legal trouble. 

     

    I know how to design suspension. I have a problem wanting to make it to good at a specific thing though. Has to be good duning, track, whoops, jumps, etc. like the sundhal frame is a perfect example of this. badass baja bike, and suffers everywhere else because of it. I have a problem where I focus on one path and head straight down it. Like a decent frame would be with laeger pickup points, and honda 450 spindles. cr500 link, or no link(both are good in their own respects). The only downside to the 450 spindles is the kpi is 1 degree less. better for turn entry, worse for turn exit. I really need to put the laeger back together and check the castor. 

  20. Banshee is a classic now and open to new builds.

    in General Banshee Discussion

    Posted

    On 7/26/2022 at 4:21 AM, DDQ said:

    Yeah I understand how a jig is setup. But how do you make one jig for two frames? The laeger lower and oem banshee upper?

    oh, not the oem upper that would be to short. I acctually got to talk to the man who engineered the laeger banshee today. I am very grateful for that conversation. I will have a massive post about it in a week or so. I have to go over my notes.

  21. Banshee is a classic now and open to new builds.

    in General Banshee Discussion

    Posted

    No, one "jig table" and 2"x2" heavy wall square tubing that the frame sits on with .125 spacers on top. You don't want to weld to your table if you can help it. The square tubing bolts in with a tapered fastener that is countersunk in. That keeps your consistency.  Why the .125 spacers you ask? that is so that you can use a piece of tubing that is .250 larger OD and .125 thick and split it down the center to weld your tubing guides on to. That will help you to be consistent. You "can" just measure real good off a flat surface. It is better to have the fixtures though. It cuts down on the human mistakes. Most proper frame jigs look like a damned spider. Every surface that has a specified point IE: suspension pickup points, body mounts, fuel tank mount. etc. has to have a provision on the jig. There are many straight bars that you can just measure and put them in. Not reinventing the wheel here. This is like fabrication 101. I am just grateful there are no sheet metal templates to deal with like on the circle track cars. 

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