More extreme weight reduction

The battery idea is a good one. It would seem that you can build one yourself with 8 LiFePo A123 batteries costing about 17 bucks a piece. Total weight savings of about 7 lbs. I have a spare Dewalt 36V pack that I can take apart and build with. Good suggestion.

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rear brakes are "required" on a bike at any NHRA sanctioned track.. (if tech is enforced)

Also seems like a pretty gutsy move to just remove the only thing you have if the fronts die...

Ditch the starter, idler, gear assy.. all the fast guys use external starters anyway :)
 
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Commuta_Busa said:
the tank is a big one.
also any glass body work you get can be sanded down on the inside a bit more to lower the weight. CF would be ideal but costly. Paint is the other thing. It's heavy!

I would lighten the subframe some more. I have a stock Gen 1 aluminum one that I wideled down to 3.153 lbs so your chromemoly one could go on more of a diet.

Same goes for the front brace. I ground mine down a bit, trimmed anything extra and made swiss cheese of it.

Don't replace bolts with Titanium unless they're stressed bolts. I've swapped to Ti on the pinch bolts, yoke bolts, caliper mount bolts, and a few other places as well. Other bolts I swapped to aluminum. The stator cover, igntion cover, clutch cover, oil pan, and a few others.

Loose the kickstand and the mounting bracket if possible or at least swiss cheese and grind down the bracket a bit.

I don't run an oil cooler on my NA engine and the oil temp has been fine except on long successive dyno runs.

I would say to swap the front with a BST and just rework your center of gravity to compensate as much as possible.

Polishing the frame can help reduce some weight too but the maintenance is high. Try and stay away from powder coat because it's heavy too. I sprayed my chromemoly battery box with as little primer as possible just to prevent rust. I may consider switching to an aluminum one if I can keep the assembly weight the same or less.

I looked at LiPo batteries in the past but I still don't feel comfortable with the investment. The busa engine pulls alot of watts at full song.
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Good ideas. I should look at the front brace. Its a big heavy piece of steel.
 
you can see in these pics some of the front brace weight reduction. Sincce the one you have is steel you should be able to trim it way down or build a lighter replcement from chromemoly. Look at the front end braces from attack and a few other for inspiration. They're practicaly a few fingers for mounting points and that's it.

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Mr Bogus said:
rear brakes are "required" on a bike at any NHRA sanctioned track.. (if tech is enforced)

Also seems like a pretty gutsy move to just remove the only thing you have if the fronts die...

Ditch the starter, idler, gear assy.. all the fast guys use external starters anyway :)
Click to expand...

Agree 100% on the brakes , also seen a turbo zx14 with no rear brakes try to stop too fast and the front end went out from under him on the far end.. never seen that happen when applying rears
 
So I tore apart an old 36V DeWalt battery to get at the newest generation Lithium batteries made by A123 corp. 4 x 3.3 V batteries in series gets you 13V x 2 banks gives the necessary current. Total weight of system is 1.5 lbs. I can't test it out until I get the motor put back together.

Alternatively, I was thinking of relocating the stock battery (or Lithium battery?) to were the oil cooler is located. A simple heat shield in front of the headers should be sufficient from overheating the battery, and the weight is low and way up front. Sounds like the oil cooler can be ditched without much of a problem.

Thoughts, Opinions?
 
I'm a 130# rider and I'm runing a turbo bike. It's also stock wheel base. Would moving the battery to the front help me keep it down in the front better?
 
keep us posted on the Li batteries. :please:

Yea, moving the bettery way down and in front where the oil cooler was is a great location. You've got the whole area in the bottom/nose of the lower fairings to play with. A serious heat shield with an air gap would really help from cooking the battery when you're standing still. :thumbsup:
Draco1340 said:
So I tore apart an old 36V DeWalt battery to get at the newest generation Lithium batteries made by A123 corp. 4 x 3.3 V batteries in series gets you 13V x 2 banks gives the necessary current. Total weight of system is 1.5 lbs. I can't test it out until I get the motor put back together.

Alternatively, I was thinking of relocating the stock battery (or Lithium battery?) to were the oil cooler is located. A simple heat shield in front of the headers should be sufficient from overheating the battery, and the weight is low and way up front. Sounds like the oil cooler can be ditched without much of a problem.

Thoughts, Opinions?
Click to expand...
 
i learned this from some of the 1/4 midget racers i crewed for back in the day...


take a disk grinder to the back of the fairings, and body panels....you can make them paper thin and nobody will notice it unless you pull them off and show them the back.
 
:thumbsup: alot of areas on my fairings and fender were almost see through before paint. :laugh:
afterhours said:
i learned this from some of the 1/4 midget racers i crewed for back in the day...


take a disk grinder to the back of the fairings, and body panels....you can make them paper thin and nobody will notice it unless you pull them off and show them the back.
Click to expand...
 
afterhours said:
i learned this from some of the 1/4 midget racers i crewed for back in the day...


take a disk grinder to the back of the fairings, and body panels....you can make them paper thin and nobody will notice it unless you pull them off and show them the back.
Click to expand...

OK, plastic has a density of around 25 cubic inches per pound. Thats a hell of a lot of material to remove for 1 pound. How much weight do you think can possibly be removed by grinding away plastic??
 
Draco - have you thought about how your going to balance the charge for each cell or are you not concerned with this?
 
One of the many improvements on the A123 cell is the lack of need for cell balancing. The other big improvement is the high charge rate and discharge rate. If I run 2 parallel pairs of 4 cells in series, they should balance OK pending how I wire it up. I need to try it out and get back to you. The cool thing about this is that they are so small and configurable, I can easily fit the battery up into the nose of the bike or down in the lower cowl.
 
shows how out of touch I am on the battery tech :banghead: I think A123 was just getting getting started back then. Battery tech has been advancing at an enormous pace ever since the whole go green & hybrid rage. :cheerleader:
Draco1340 said:
One of the many improvements on the A123 cell is the lack of need for cell balancing. The other big improvement is the high charge rate and discharge rate. If I run 2 parallel pairs of 4 cells in series, they should balance OK pending how I wire it up. I need to try it out and get back to you. The cool thing about this is that they are so small and configurable, I can easily fit the battery up into the nose of the bike or down in the lower cowl.
Click to expand...
 
Draco1340 said:
OK, plastic has a density of around 25 cubic inches per pound. Thats a hell of a lot of material to remove for 1 pound. How much weight do you think can possibly be removed by grinding away plastic??
Click to expand...

a pound is a pound.....and its free.

i did not know we were rationalizing it, or doing a cost vs. effort analysis.

how about removing the shock linkage, dog bones, etc.....and running a revalved shock mounted directly to the swingarm, without the linkage...
 
sean06 said:
Do you know who makes this setup? I thought that was the reason why peopel went with the 1k forks so they could get offset tripples. If you can get them for the busa forks then what is the benefit of going through all that trouble and added money?

I have already bought wheels and front discs for the bike and would rather not do that again for a 1k setup:beerchug:
Click to expand...

Hays Machine makes them. Click here for the link. Don't know why people make the switch to 1k forks, but I'm sure there's a reason...just know that this ain't it!
 
I wish I could tell you how much weight I'm saving on my cafe racer project but I haven't weighed it yet. BUT, have you considered puting a modified minimalist fairing on the nose instead of full plastics? I suggest this because....visually I can't believe how light my project bike looks without plastics! Of course that includes taking off hundreds of other unnecessary pieces/brackets, etc. Just a thought...I'll post my bike's weight when it becomes a turnkey (a few weeks away). Raydog

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