At 01:24 PM 2/2/97 -0500, Matt "Brother Buford" Martin wrote:
>>I ment when she comes across all the horrible calculations and fixes his
>>frame to hold the twin engine!  Perhaps that was only successful though
>>because her main thing was not speed at this time but getting the frame
>>to support it!
>
>Yes, but later the motorcycle club has to keep doing modifications to the
>bike (rubber bearings, handlebar balancer, etc.) because of some design flaw
>(although this could have been Keiichi and Megumi's fault, since they are
>the ones who assembled the bike).  But then again, Tamiya and Ootaki's
>handiwork on the engine could have been below par - which is always a
>possibility.

        There are inherent limitations on twin engines that are hard to
address with chasis design.  One main problem is simply that of chasis flex.
With twin engines, you may not increase the speed by much, but you will
definately increase the torque by a great amount.  I can't really put into
figures how much that is now since I have no real numbers to do calculations
with so let's say it's double.  Skuld probably didn't have the power and
torque specifications of the engines (GSX-R, circa early 90's were double
overhead cam, 4 cylinder, 4 valves per cylinder, no ram air which would have
made the calculation easier but this doesn't even begin to tell the story)
at the time of the design.  Chasis flex is _really bad_ (I mean, really
really bad, like buck the rider right off bad and crash into the stands
killing 20 little kids on a school trip bad) in any sort of racing.

        Another restriction is materials.  K1 was working with steel tube
chasis with probably a limited aluminum components which has restrictions on
the material strength.  Nowdays you'll see most high powered bikes' chasis
made with stamped aluminum bars so massive they look like huge tooled
aluminum chunk.  Only Ducati to my knowledge has steel tube chasis (the bird
cage) but Ducati's run with twins (twin cylinder but not twin engine).
While steel is stronger than aluminum, you cannot use steel like you can use
aluminum because of the high weight penalty.  And aluminum welding requires
very high heat which I don't think that K1, or his club, could afford...
(not to mention aluminum is very expensive...)  These all go to supporting
that Skuld only had steel tube design to work with.

        Handlebar balance also is indicative of those above problems.  When
you have chasis flex and excessive vibrations, the "handle" will want to
shake along with the bike, which is yet another _really bad_ thing.
Handlebar balance, or steering damper (at least I think they meant steering
dampers by the handlebar balance), correct this by placing a couple of
shocks (gas or liquid, although that may have changed) on the sides of the
handlebar, preventing any sharp movements.  For a real life example of this,
go to a screen door in your house with that "shock."  If you try to close
the door quickly, it will not let you do that, instead closing at its own
rate.  This is useful whe you hit a bump at high speed that jerks the
steering bar in either way, but can also work to reduce drifting with
vibration, especially in drag races where you only go straight.

>You can't make a world-class machine with faulty parts - and I think even
>Skuld would agree with that.

        Engineers are always restrained by materials, even good perfectly
working materials.  Ther are things that you simply cannot do without
material breakthroughs.  You look at the technological breakthroughs and
often you'll see material breakthroughs that precedes the technological
breakthroughs.  Often they are concurrent.  But only rarely will you see
derivative breakthrough before the material breakthrough.

        Whoa, got too long here but the Skuld fans would be happy to know
that their favorite goddess was blameless in the problem K1's bike have had
during the race. ^_^

> --=[ Brother Buford ]=--              Proud #SkAS# Member    

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