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The wishbones of the front suspension are the most critical and most heavily loaded parts of the bike. The wishbones connect the front fork with the chassis and they also acommodate the front shock.

Both parts are clamped to the chassis through 2 rod-ends that allow to modify their lenght, making possible to adjust the front end geometry. The lower wishbone is the one more loaded, mainly during braking. It’s shape is far from optimal in order to achieve a good load distribution, because it is wide and short, but I chose this option because it allows to achieve more room for the radiator that is “surrounded” by the wishbone.

Anyway the width of this area of the bike is dictated by the engine, so it didn’t have too much sense to try to design a narrower wishbone. This is the top one:

Taking into account the responsability of these parts, I made a quite conservative design, keeping good safety coefficients. It always will be possible to try a more efficient design in the future. Even so I studied 10 different options because I wanted to try to get the best possible design inside of the intended safety coefficient. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is a great tool that helps to resolve this kind of questions.

I considered to build the parts using welded steel tube, welded aluminium sheetmetal, finally I chose aluminium CNC milled parts, in this way it is not necessary to weld, or to build any jig. Moreover it is a cool option from an aesthetics point of view, Hugo van Waaijen gave me some ideas to improve the parts in this aspect.

Once we have the final design of the parts, we can export the geometry to a file, send it by email to our provider, and in just a few hours we can get the final parts, ready to assembly on the bike.

English is not my native language, so please let me know if you find any mistake. Thank you.

Tags: morlaco, design, finite elements, FEA, aluminium, cnc

Last weekend I watched two motogp related movies/documentaries that were released some time ago, I’m talking about “Faster” and “The Doctor, the Tornado and the Kentucky Kid“. I’m not going to make a review of them, because there are already a lot on internet, I just will mention that I found them really good, I think that any motogp enthusiast will love these movies, it’s worth to watch it.
The reason I’m writing this post is that I found something that I didn’t know, and that captured my attention: the most radical aerodynamic concept that I have seen in the modern World Championship era.

During 2002 season, the new 990 4 strokes coexisted with the almost wiped out 500 cc. 2 strokes. The new 990’s had more power and higher top speed. Peter Clifford’s team, Red Bull Yamaha, tried to reduce the top speed difference improving the aerodynamics of their bikes. In March of 2002, they planned a secret test in Valencia (Spain), because they wanted to test a new bodywork.

The rider who tested it was a very young John Hopkins (in 2002 he made his debut in MotoGP, he was only 19 years old), because his team mate, Gary Mckoy was injuried. The test finished when Hopkins had a crash, but the team members said that it was not related with the bodywork they were testing.
Although wind tunnel tests were possitive, the team ruled out the new bodywork, because as they mention in the movie, in the test they didn’t achieve any significant improvement.

Tags: aerodynamics, bodywork, motogp, peter clifford, testing

The photo shows the Morlaco prototype, with a still unpainted chassis. The white part is a first “test” airbox, made using fiber glass just to check that dimensions are ok, that the intake trumpets fit properly, etc.
In this post you can see the airbox, with its cover, already built using carbon fiber.

In the middle-lower area of the photo appears one of the aluminum triangles built to clamp the trellis chassis to the engine. Also, in the steering area you can see several aluminium cnc parts with machined hollows to save weight.

Once the parts were assembled on the bike, I was dissapointed because the steering (the “triple clamp”) didn’t give me a good feeling, the housing area for the triple clamp axle was not stiff enough, and it was possible to feel some deflection if you pressed strong enough the handlebar.
So I redesigned that area and now I already have new parts to assembly on the bike. It will be necessary to cut and weld again into the chassis a new steering axle housing.

You can wath this photo in big size in our flickr photo gallery.

Tags: morlaco, chassis, airbox, aluminium, cnc, steering

Some days ago I received the book Motogp Technology, by Neil Spalding. Books about motorbikes and technology are not very common, even less common if they are about racing motorbikes, so I was waiting for it with impatiente. I had good expectations about this book, because I already read some really good technical articles (normally about MotoGP) by Neil Spalding, here in Spain they are published from time to time in SoloMoto magazine.
The book is hard cover (27×21×1.5 cm) and it has 192 pages full colour. Just only because the photos it is worth to buy it.

The author makes a technical review of the first MotoGP era, from 2002 to 2006, with 990 cc. engines, analyzing  all the bikes that raced in the category: Ducati, Honda, Kawasaki, Roberts (Proton, KTM, Honda), Suzuki, Yamaha, WCM, Aprilia and Moriwaki.
Neil has focused this analysis in a very interesting way, explaining the different approach that every brand took to face the technical challenge involved in starting a completely new category. He also explains the difficulties that the brands found, and the way they tried to solve it.

I think that every MotoGP enthusiast is aware of the level of means and the huge amount of work that racing departments dedicate to be competitive, but reading this book makes you feel more aware about it.

As well as the motorbike analysis, there are chapters dedicated to history, rules, technology, engines (valves, crankshaft, clutch, big bang), electronics (ride by wire, data adquisition), chassis (packaging, construction), suspensions, brakes, tyres and aerodynamics (basic theory, flow).

I think it is an indispensable book for those interested  in motorbikes from a technical point of view. I wish that more books of this type were publicated more often, I learnt a lot of things reading it.

English is not my native language, so please let me know if you find any mistake. Thank you.

Tags: motogp, book, technology, neil spalding

I remember  very clearly when I saw this motorbike for the first time in a magazine, it was 1987. I was shocked. It is very easy to impress a 14 years old boy, but I still like it as much as  I did as a boy. From time to time some design catches me, to such an extent that it becomes a source of inspiration and motivation to try to create something new. This is one of those designs.

Generally I am mainly interested in racing motorbikes, and my interest are mainly technical. This is not the case, this is more an aesthetic/concept subject.

This bike emanates a very agressive feeling, and 20 years after its creation, I still find it a fresh and original design.

The rider is located very low, almost lying down, in some way it reminds me of the attitude that it would have in a very sporty car, it is also similar to the attitude in some megascooters, although I think that here everything is more exaggerated.

The bike was created by Hans-Joachim Maier, it was his final thesis.

I would like to design a motorbike in this way, as a street legal vehicle. I talked about it to Hugo van Waaijen, we like to talk a lot about motorbikes. He is a motorbike freak, and couldn’t resist the temptation of doing this cool 5 minutes photoshop proposal.

You can see that it is a fast sketch in some details, for example there is not too much room in the seat area. Personally, I would like a lower motorbike, with the rider located closer to the ground. And maybe a more agressive design, not so civilized.

 Regarding the engine, I think it would be interesting to use a V-twin, in this way the rider wouldn’t have to ride with his legs very opened. An engine with personality, like a Ducati or a Harley. Any suggestion is welcome.
We looked for a name for this project, and finally we choosed this one: TORPEDO.

Tags: maier, concept bike, design, feet forward

Kork Ballington won the 250 and 350 world championships in 1978. He did the same in 1979. During 1980, 1981 and 1982, he rode in 500, developing a new Kawasaki prototype, the KR500, with a liquid cooled “square four” 2 strokes engine. The bike didn’t win any race, but it is one of those bikes with a special charm, with several interesting technical solutions. Some days ago I watched this Youtube video, in which Kork Ballington shows the bike and explains some things about it. 

The chassis is an aluminium central spine, that worked also as fueltank. Curiously, the bike had another “conventional” external fueltank. As Kork explains in the video, it doesn’t seem a very brilliant idea, because using two different fueltanks is not the best way to save weight.

The bike had also a mechanical antidive system in the front end. The steering geometry was adjustable, and the front wheel axle was mounted on a excentric. The swingarm axle was housed in 4 aluminum plates clamped to the engine.

Here you can see several photos, these are not from the real bike, they are from a scale model, but are very interesting in order to have a good idea about the bike. (Photos via “The Huesan Page“)

Tags: kawasaki kr 500, kork ballington, chassis, 2 strokes