Interest in a chromoly tube chassis?

Alright, this is still in the VERY early development stages, just kinda throwing a feeler out there as im curious to the interest in it. i know the rev chassis, as new as it is, is already somewhat dated by the XP. BUT, i think there is a large group that loves the rev and dont want to transition anytime soon. SO here goes. Lots of rambling, just trying to get the info out there for discussion.

My buddy built a chromoly tube tunnel this summer and after riding the sled some and just looking at it I was VERY impressed. the tubing overall drops a few pounds on the tunnel, with the whole bulkhead/nun built out of tubing even more weight could be shaved, no solid numbers but it will definately be lighter! I know everyone wants light light light... and this would definately be a step in that direction. The key goal is to build a sled you can mash into trees/rocks, crash, roll, cartwheel, you name it, and have it pop back up and keep going. The weak link on rev chassis sleds is the nun, we all know it, I RIPPED a nun on a tree. The tube chassis should put you in the hospital for things your hitting way before you bend stuff. A huge benefit of the tube chassis is that there is almost NO snow buildup on it as the powdecoated tubing just doesnt hold snow like the back of an aluminum tunnel, this is a HUGE plus when out on the deep days and the sled is carying around 20+ pounds of ice and snow. Another huge benefit of the full tube chassis is rigidity. When you stand at the back of a normal sled and lift on one side of the bumper you can very obviously see the whole sled bending a fair amount. with the tube chassis this flex is VERY little, and in turn creates a VERY nimble sled. Riding the tube tunnel sled compared to a normal one is strange at first as i found myself over reacting to things as it takes much less input to get it to respond.


Sort of a long rant about nothing, just trying to get things out there, my buddy and I are entertaining the idea of building a few tube chassis to sell after we complete our own and I was curious what people thought about it.

Our goal would be to have it so you could basically take and bolt on all the plastic and internal parts from the normal sled, so it would look almost stock except for the obvioust parts like the tunnel.

Pricing is something I bet everyone would want to know, but as this is just a feeler, i have no idea on the amount of time/materials that would be into it, i have apporximation on materials, but the labor is something i have no clue on yet. Also, being mostly 1 off chassis's there would be a lot of options available as far as what you want and how you want it done, again greatly affecting the price.

Again, this is just a feeler, we hope to have at least 1 full tube sled on the snow by may/june for some testing, but want to see if this is something worth pursuing or if we are wasting time.

Nick

and just some more info and thoughts now that i have stepped back and cruised the web.

I feel as thought the ideal place for this would be if you smashed yoru sled up good. seen plenty of people who have done nuns... obviously nowhere near the same cost. or if you hit em hard enough the like to crinkle the bulkhead.

Also working on a design that would allow to replace the tiny chunk of stamped aluminum under the pipe in the nose cone and replace it with something sligthly more stuctural, so everytime you hit something dead on it didnt break the bumper and then dent the pipe super bad(been there, done that, more then once) Exploring the possability of building parts for the rev that would allow users to strengthen the sled whithout doing a entire chassis as well. the only downfall of this is as soon as you strengthen one thing, the next inline breaks, so then you end up with full tube sled. I would still like to offer some parts that add strength but dont just break bigger parts instead, finding a nice balanace.

The end goal would be to make the raw chassis (no accessories like chromoly steering post, etc etc) an affordable option for people who have mashed there sled up and dont just want to go back to the same crappy weak option they started with.

If your more then just sorta intrigued by the idea, feel free to PM me as I would love to build some things like this for people.

trex

and think if the prototype had a trex for power.

i'd b into that as an option for a banged up sled, plus stiffer and more responsive would be killllerrr

I've been thinking about going that route this summer, (building my own) since my tunnel, nun, ect is so tweaked but everything else is pretty solid on my sled. Don't know how far i'd make it along or if I'll actually get to it, as I have a project car that needs a new frame first..but if somebody else were to make a bolt on version, or even a weld together kit, depending on the price of course I'd be interested.

yeah, gonna be ordering up some tubing and starting on my 700 rev first just to get it worked on, this is my hacker sled, so i dont mind if its half arse looking... but after looking at it i think it would be relatively easy to build a frame that you bolted most of the stock stuff to.

been working on some more ideas.. they are really neat design and a few ways to make them SUPER rigid.. methinks they are gonna be fun!

also, as far as a prototype having a trex motor... mine is 2nd or 3rd we are gonna build, regular rev's first.. then onto the RT... but I have plans for mine that involve a redone turbo, snow to air front cooler for the intercooler setup.... and around 100 less pounds!! i think the revs are gonna be NUTS.. if i can get mine close to hte weight of a normal rev... which i think i can because of redoign some things.. lets just say it should be insane at 10-14# on pump fuel... think 200-250 horse ski-doo....

also, we are hoping to have the first one or two sleds done by late may so there could be some demo riding in cooke late season to get some durability testing, and let people try em if they wanted...

Here are a couple Pix of the original. This would be what we base a lot of the testing on. So far, it is working awesome. It made this sled a whold different animal. I abuse this this sled more that the average and it has not missed a beat. There are a few things i would like to improve upon but that is why we have more comming.

your a ninja... how are you posting... i thought you are driving? oh wait... smartphone... bleck...........

i wasnt gonna post pics up of your sled yet... dont want to be selling your stuff without permission!! also, i think i got some good guesses done for amounts.. so i think we will be able to start digging into both of ours pretty soon!

and yours is a good first round for looks, the black white stands out so nice... cant wait for the yamadoo in orange tubing!!!

And of course, im gonna post to get this idea back up top for discussion...

I have a redesign of the stock chassis that will make it so you have to pull the primary to pull the motor BUT will make the chassis insanely rigid and somewhat impossible to bend the nun, and not add a million braces in the mean time. there will be 4 main tubes that run from the A arm mounts in the front all the way to the rear skid bolts in the back... this should create a sled that doesnt give when you smash stuff... and if you hit stuff hard enuogh to break it, your not gonna be worried about the chassis(think doctor bills). Should be ordering up chromoly here in the next day or two... getting welder situation delt with and gonna start chassis #1... cant wait!

Add some grip to those running boards!! Very cool idea but I think for the average joe you might find the cost to be to expensive. But I guess well see what price you come up with.

I want one BAD! As soon as i win the lotto You'll be the first call I make.

NEWDUCK said:

Add some grip to those running boards!! Very cool idea but I think for the average joe you might find the cost to be to expensive. But I guess well see what price you come up with.

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you would be suprised. they have tiny allen heads tacked on the top of them and they grip insanely well.. i have ridden his sled in some good deeper snow... you dont need a hole lot of traction when theres no snow stuck to em!! we are workin on trying to run the coolant throught the lower rail inside by the footwell, if it works out it will totally eliminate the little snow buildup the chassis ends up with right now.

as far as the price. we are thinking about the option of selling just tunnels like pictured in Josh's sled. Because the DOO tunnel runs all the way to in front of the motor, you basically cut the stock one off right by the footwells and rivet them on... works GREAT so far... Josh rides the crap out of that thing and it is still solid as can be, so That is always an opetion for those who might not be looking into the full tube sled. Also, I know plenty of people who smash in NUN's rather often, and some that hit it hard enough to crinkle the tunnel, this would be hopefully not much mroe expensive then replacing with stock parts, but 10x better. I have seen to many good sleds get parted out because they took a good tumble and the rev chassis just isnt the strongest thing on the planet.

And for the lotto coment. the chassis shouldnt be near what a full carbon one costs.. the materials are obviously much cheaper, just lots of time cutting and welding. after we get the first one or two done up for our personal demo sleds we should have a better idea of the time/materials that go into building one. And once you build 1 or two the time going into one will most likely drop VERY fast.


I will have my material here next week and will begin poking away at the rough frame of the chassis.. the motor isnt gonna be swapped in any time soon, just start working on the outline then add more bracing/details as time allows. Im still in college, so i try to make this thing not my #1 priority. The goal is to have it ready for spring, so kinda like spring checking a sled, if they work out and people are interested, you can come test ride one of em. The sled thats getting the chassis swap may look kinda bad cuz the plastic has been through h3ll and back, but we hope to have a prototype very close to a production style, that way you can see exactly what would be involved in the install if you were interested. It has been ridden like a rental its whole life(thats how it started) so the goal is to have a chassis that can be ridden like that and not be affraid of totally bending it up into a ball!!

NEWDUCK said:

Add some grip to those running boards!! Very cool idea but I think for the average joe you might find the cost to be to expensive. But I guess well see what price you come up with.

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As for traction, I have not hopped on a sled since with better running bord traction. Belive me, ITS THERE

Whatch out JSkattum with that one piece bumper/ back half, you might want to make something removable/replaceable, just riding with Nick it's only a matter of time before he azz-packs you! trust me.

I must have horrible eyes or a horrible screen cause they still look slick but ill take your word on it.....Now back to the price. Right now im one of those peeps who have bent the nun and part of the tunnel and im in the process of fixing it. And if you can make the tube part of the nun for the same or pretty close to the same price as what brp sells it for then I think you will def have somthing. Id buy it in a heart beat

the problem with just replacing the nun with tubing is that it will be 10x stronger then the bulkhead then and if you hit something, its ALL going to hell... and your back to square one, or way worse.

If you want feel free to PM me with what kinda stuff your looking at if we could possibly work something out... who knows.

as for the grip on his running boards, unless your right up close in person you cant barely see the grips BUT, i can say they work very well.... when you dont have to deal with snow chunks its not hard to get good traction.

i think these would be huge. after riding with josh, i thought his chassis is about the sweetest out there. i would put one on my rev in a heartbeat. i remember us telling josh to make em and sell em. now your thinking about it thats good!

yeah... they are really cool... and its a look that not everyone has, which i will really like... something different. Not sure how much time its gonna take to pump out an entire chassis, but the material cost isnt to bad so far... of course like anything it will double by the time its done, so this is good for those who are interested in the entire chassis... BUT, im thinking we can easily get REV's around the 400 dry mark with out to much other light stuff... Im thinking we can easily get them to 450 ready to ride with the right supporting mods, suspension etc.

Im still on the fence on weather im gonna tube my big hotrod out or sell it and do an 800... but either way, theres gonna be some fun sleds coming out of me/josh's garages this summer and hopefully this will get some other people are interested. seems like once you ride em you understand its more then just hype!!

working on seom redesigign of the steering system and think with a lightweight post and other rework it will be easy to knock off another say 5-10# out of something most people dont touch.. this combinded with some other ideas we have been talking about is gonna make some really interesting and light toys.

did i miss it but what is the weight savings over the stock chassis?

ahah.. ill retype it simply as i like to type a LOT... im a chaty person. We havent built a full chassis yet, so the weight saving #'s arent set in stone yet, and what I mentioned was there would be options... just basically replace the nun/bulkhead/tunnel tube wise which would save a little wight, or the full frame(pyramid assembly as well), custom steering setup, possible A-arms/spindles. For an estimate I would say you could get around #20-25 out of the base chassis, and probably another 10 with steering setup and other parts.... with stock front and rear suspensions im thinking 30+ pounds is possible... and massive strength increase... BUT, we will have numbers when we get chassis #1 done this spring.

The savings will be nice, but the increase in handling and strenght is the key selling point I see... for those who like to beat the piss out of a sled, wreck and roll, this will be a really nice setup.