This should probably be in tech talk, but I was wondering what the general opinion was. A mate at work is looking to build a trike with a 1600 type 3 motor. He now has one of them and is slowly rebuilding it. Now the question I have is, what type of gearbox is better for a trike? With its lighter weight etc, would any 1600 box do or what?
Cheers
mackaymanx ·
I have seen swingaxle, irs and auto all used in trikes.A 1600 box would have the better gearing for highway speeds.
greedy53 ·
1800 good cruising box top gear is long
Joel ·
the original german bontrikes like my old mans came with 1500 4.125 swinger boxes with 1st gear locked out
dunno if the aussie built bontrikes and oztrikes are setup like this but it was for 2 reasons
main one was to pass noise level tests
accelarating to 80km/h in 2nd gear with a vw motor as u can imagine wouldnt pass any sound tests so they locked out 1st gear and made 2nd 1st, 3rd 2nd etc
also its to hard to keep the wheel on the ground taking off in a stock 1st gear
Karstens which had a 1916 pobjoy steroid motor could pull 300m wheelies
Adsman ·
Yeah Joel thats correct, the bon trikes have 1st locked out in Aust also. Even taking off in second with a big bore VW motor or Subaru is tricky at times. I believe that IRS interfers with the long range tanks fitted to some styles of bodies but most are good.
LIFE IN THE LOW LANE ·
Have a friend who built a trike using a Type 3 motor and used an IRS single side cover box with 4.125 diff. Thing went well and cruised on the freeway really nice. also passed noise tests too. most of the exhausts used on trike are crap and sound crap. Put something decent on it that passes noise tests and actually improves performance and away you go.
pete wood ·
do you actually need a gearbox with all that torque? surely you could just take off in top.
Joel ·
not many options for decent exhausts on them
altho peter richards had one with a baja quiet pack fitted but the engine cage was pretty long to fit it
dads still has the standard rewaco canons they came out with but has larger outlets which sound mean but dont do it any favours down low
penguin ·
Thanks for that 👍, shall pass it on to him and see what he thinks (or what advice he got from the frame manufacturuer)