Dusting off this thread!
I have not worked a lot on this project since last winter. Only update are a carb heater and an anti vibration riser. Ideally I would need to fab some sort of side panel for this winter to minimize carb icing. Everything else work just fine for now... Riding was also on hold this winter due to the weather, January here was between -25c to -40c so there is no way I would ride this thing without a heated handlebar like the current setup. Temps looks to be going up for February so I hope I will be able to take it for a few ride.
In the mean time I had been working on the v2. Well I don't think we can call it v2 since there is pretty much anything in common with what I have built last year... Only thing that I have kept is experience and knowledge! The design of the v2 was with completely different objective than the v1, but the first version helped me a lot in finding what I want and what I need.
On this one it is not about minimal weight and be as ''out of the box as possible'' that matter, while weight is still a consideration and creative solutions are still the name of the game there is more this time. I want it to be a flexible in the power plant choice, have as much room as possible, good ergo and professional look and be simple in its design.
So I designed it around the Arctic cat Blast engine and around a yz450f engine, there is enough room to fit both but the Blast would be a very tight fit and need some small tweak to the final bodywork. For now I have found a 450f that I may be able to get... we will see if I can close the deal on it. For the chassis I switched to a twin rail setup in the narrow Yeti spacing along with a brand new Yeti 129 track, no more splice on this one! Dual fox float rear suspension in a classic geometry more like an ARO or a Yeti. In the front I opted for forks instead of the front facing A-arm setup. There is notting wrong with the A-arm setup, in fact it works very well and I have not touched it once, but this setup take a lot of space and require a lot of fab work.
Last year we discussed on this thread of the ball joint mount for the fork setup, I was not sure about the simplicity and I even built two frame section for the V2 to be able to make a good decision. Finally the V2 will have the ball joint design since it add so much space down low and distribute the load quite well I think.
Here is some picture of the last few months, A lot of work has been done and the hard part is that everything has to be built and designed at the same time to ensure a proper fit of the bodywork and ensure that I success in my objective to have a nice professional look on this one!
Here is the last evolution of the tunnel design
New drive shaft setup
new rear suspension
Mostly the final front chassis section, there will be a bit more bracing but you get the idea...
And finally there is the icing on the cake! A real piece of bodywork. Molds will be pulled from this plug and fibreglass prototype version will be used. Some day a carbon version would be the ultimate goal.
