Subaru powered trike

[lazza]

Hi all. Now that i've finished building my hovercraft i need another project and i've been doing some research into building a subaru or VW powered trike. I'm struggling to find over the net someone in New Zealand that builds trike frames to suit a sub or Vw and was wondering if anyone out there can suggest websites or emails that would point in the right direction ? I have noticed a dave watt in invercargill but the email address on his site doesnt seem to be active and no matter how much surfing i do i keep ending back at dingbob's site in australia but would rather have NZ supplier if i can find one so any suggestions welcome.

Cheers
Lazza
www.hovercraft.geek.nz

[El Dopa]

Hi all. Now that i've finished building my hovercraft i need another project and i've been doing some research into building a subaru or VW powered trike. I'm struggling to find over the net someone in New Zealand that builds trike frames to suit a sub or Vw and was wondering if anyone out there can suggest websites or emails that would point in the right direction ? I have noticed a dave watt in invercargill but the email address on his site doesnt seem to be active and no matter how much surfing i do i keep ending back at dingbob's site in australia but would rather have NZ supplier if i can find one so any suggestions welcome.

Dunno about the trike frame stuff, but subclub.co.nz for engine stuff and general subaru advice

[Subike]

there is a lot of info out there for what you need, but finding it can take ages.
Do a search for "brothers of the third wheel" and you will find a heap of info, but finding a plan of any sort would be difficult.
I have attached some of the better pics for a rear engined trike, for which you can use a subaru motor attached to a VW trans axle.
The green front engined VW trike is interesting in that it uses 2 VW gearboxes to get the length, the transaxle as you guess has been rotated 180 and the diff pulled out then turned over -, inserted in the opp side of caseing, thus changing direction of the drive. The engine is attached to the first Gearbox, which houses the cluth and starter mtr. The main input shaft is lengthend, to travel throught the empty gearbox housing into the second gearbox, which obviously contains the gears/
From that breif discription, you should get the idea.
A front mounted trike is far superior in handling and stability than a rear engined "dancer" which will pull wheelees all day.

The other one is just a dream, but worth of a look for some of its nice engineering, plus the fact that the A arm front suspension was designed and but by our very own John Britton Engineering in CHCH.

Another very good read, and worth the read is "JP7 Trike Design"
An engineeer that has heaps of information that is really inportant when concidering building a trike. Balance, weight transfer and distribution, being some of the topics he covers in detail.

As mentioned re the builder in Invercargil. Beware

Bob Dingbat trikes in aussie is worht looking into , very good stuff availabile from them

Enjoy your build.

[Sharry]

You could try emailing kiwitrikers@xtra.co.nz
They are NZ wide and I suspect they should be able to help or put you in the right direction. if you get no help there you coulkd PM me and i could give you the name of the guy that made the VDub trike I bought in '81. He sold me that trike when he finnished his Mazda turbo trike and may have kept relevant information that could be useful.

Good on you for giving it a go they are fabulous machines to ride, I would love to have another one myself.

PS
And if you do complete a VDub trike with extended forks and whish to sell it to a loving owner can I have first dibs please?

[lazza]

Thanks for the replies and pictures, i have just made contact with kiwi trikers so thats a good starting point. If i do managae to go ahead with it then it will certainly be a chopper style trike sharry and yep i'll be sure to re post in here if i choose to sell it one day :-) although i might not be doing a vw or sub motor after having a burst of inspiration from working on a car at work today, could well be a little something out of the norm :-)
cheers