contact Harry Tarzian here. hehas a rig with sidecar steering He built it himself.H T WheelsHarry TarzianP.O. Box 145Rebersburg,PA 16872Phone:814-349-2414Components Mfg. – Custom high traction wheels, sidecar frames and hardware.
Some outfits have used sidecar wheel steering. I think Dauntless' new rig has this on it, maybe he will post to elaboate on it.
The Sidebike 'Comanchee' of which there are a few in this country also has a steered sidecar wheel. Most of the European High Performnce sidecar guys have gotten away from it due to issues related to correcting a slkiding rig and/or issues when th esidecar wheel comes off th eground and then comes down again I have been told.
Ralph Gerkens has a Comanchee and, yes, he goes pretty strong on it. There may still be a picture of Ralph's rig at the link below and also a short discussion on th etopic of sidecar wheel steering.
http://tinyurl.com/9o4s8
If the link does not work go to hpsidecars.com and look for a thread with the topic 'sidecar wheel steering' in the 'HPSidecar Technical Discussion' section.
As Bob mentioned Harry Tarzian is experiemnting with sidecar wheel steering on his Subaru powered R100RT. Bill Ballou has also built a rig with this feature.
The real 'advantage' is that you can run much more lead with little to no ill effects. The disadvantages in normal everyday sidecar usage are yet to be documented.
Design wise this system is a 'challenge' in getting the steering linkage correct to provide the desired (liveable?) amount of steering at the sidecar wheel. Providing an Ackerman effect is also a challenge on a non symetrical vehicle. There are other factors that must be considered in the design to prevent bump steer, undesirable braking reactions in left and right turns, as well as castor changes in left and right turns as the sidecar suspension moves on a different plane than the motorcycle suspension.
Great potential but, to me anyhow, it is a huge question on whether it is worth the effort under real world conditions.
In my last post I mentioned Ralph Gerkens' Comanchee sidecar outfit. Here is a link to Ralph's site . There are many great pictures etc. there.
http://www.somefear.com
To put Claudes words in simple terms, it is not a 1 to 1 change when turning from center to right as it is to turn from center to left. The difference is BIG - such as a five or a ten to one difference - and this depends on the sidecar wheel lead and the sidecar wheel track, and as Claude mentioned, what happens when you are in a powered situation with the sidecar wheel elevated and whamo, it suddenly hits the deck, or god forbid, you are down here in Houston and you just happen to get into one of our infamous potholes with the bike with the sidecar wheel elevated - who knows where you will be!
We have much to learn before this becomes standard on all rigs. Look for the base sidecars to be the norm for quite a while.
Wow, thanks for the links Claude!
you guys need to check them out if your new to this.
Here is another one. It is Roger Symington's site. Roger used to own Ralph's Comanchee.
http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/sidebike99/
There’re some pretty impressive looking ideas going on with those high performance rigs, anybody ever heard of them racing on an oval track?
It might be kinda cool to see Hi Po Hacks go at it on a banked oval.
Not the conventional HPS by any means but to get around an oval much faster than these things would be an accomplishment.
Click here:
www.sidecarspeedway.com/
Not real sure what will be acomplished. Having been at oval speedways from the angry side with the pit crew and watching the various classes from the 500cc solo to the unlimited sidecar rigs and from the 500cc 4-wheeler to the 4-wheeler VW class to the 2L stock to the unlimited 400 hp monsters, and throw in a few other classes in between, the ONLY thing that is CONSTANT is the average speed around the track, within limits. A bit slower for the smaller thingies, a bit faster for the bigger thingies.
The BIGGEST differences is the QUANTITIES of rooster tails thrown upwards and outwards into the crowds and the roar of the mighty engines and how muvh they gi around the track SIDEWAYS, but their FORWARD speed is about the same as the puny motors that putt putt around the track without the noise and with no roster tails and with little sideslip - but then, these are NOT what the crowd comes to see. They want to see the monkey fall off the platform and the upset rig crash into the bales, they came to see the moster motors flip end for end. They did not come to see science at work - just crash and burn. Go check out the websites. Some list the fatalities year by year.
Only thing I’ve found was a race at Infineon California,
“The opportunity to grow sidecar racing in partnership with the Superside World Championship is an excellent match. We believe the North American market, both Canada and the United States, is ready for a professional sidecar series,” stated Thomas Haynes, Superside America Series Director during a visit to last weekend’s Superside FIM Sidecar World Championship round at Nürburgring, Germany. “What better way to start off the series than by partnering with a NASCAR race - the biggest racing series in the world.”
“America is a relatively untapped market for the Sidecar racing scene, and the partnership with Superside America will help all Superside teams achieve a wider audience,” said Ian Guy, the Superside World Championship’s TV and Media Manager.
check out these side car race sites
http://www.nexusracing.co.uk/
http://www.pashnit.com/bikes/sidecar.htm
http://www.deltaautoservice.com/sidecars/
I wanna see these guys race at Bristol
