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11/6/2017
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San Diego, CA
US
Luxon MX
6/27/2021 1:29pm
6/27/2021 1:29pm
Edited Date/Time
11/24/2022 9:41am
We've had this build going for a while, I just haven't had a chance to get a post going yet, but here we go!
First of all, the 150SX build is still happening, it's just been a little slower than I'd hoped. This build will go a lot faster as we're not going nearly as in-depth with it, but still doing some really cool stuff. This bike will be our primary development bike for the Austrian brands products. And the old Husky is wearing out, so it's time for a freshie!
JMC Motorsports (https://www.jmc-motorsports.com/) hooked us up with a great deal on a new 2021 Husky FC450 late last year, which was pretty awesome of them during a time when bikes were impossible to find or absurdly expensive.
We took delivery of the bike and started stripping it down:
First of all, the 150SX build is still happening, it's just been a little slower than I'd hoped. This build will go a lot faster as we're not going nearly as in-depth with it, but still doing some really cool stuff. This bike will be our primary development bike for the Austrian brands products. And the old Husky is wearing out, so it's time for a freshie!
JMC Motorsports (https://www.jmc-motorsports.com/) hooked us up with a great deal on a new 2021 Husky FC450 late last year, which was pretty awesome of them during a time when bikes were impossible to find or absurdly expensive.
We took delivery of the bike and started stripping it down:
So, this is pretty much the final motor package:
The keen eye might see some titanium bolts in there. Motostuff has awesome bolt kits; you just pick your bike and the area you want bolts, and they have everything sorted out for you already. This is the "Titanium Engine Fastener Kit, KTM-HUSKY 250F-350F 2016-2020 (39 bolts)". We lost a little weight, but arguably more importantly, everything just looks way nicer without those zinc coated stock bolts. Just be sure to use plenty of anti-seize (we use Loctite C5a) and use a torque wrench to tighten to the appropriate torque (adjusting for the lubricity of the anti-seize and the titanium, it's about 40% LESS torque than what's in the manual).
How do you know the general amount of torque adjustment to account for because of the diff. lubricity?
http://tds.henkel.com/tds5/Studio/ShowPDF/243%20NEW-EN?pid=LB%208008&fo…
Combine that with our spreadsheet to calculate torque/tension (available here):
https://www.luxonmx.com/resources.html
And verify with some internal testing, and it comes in at about 40% reduction in torque for the same bolt tension.
The Shop
Plastic is an awesome material when used appropriately. There are lots of spots on a motorcycle that work out fine for plastic. Brake and clutch master cylinder covers are a good example. You can replace them with anodized aluminum for some bling, but they'll be heavier and offer no performance advantage.
Here's the design in CAD (SolidWorks). It's pretty basic, just wanted function without adding a bunch of weight and keep it relatively easy to manufacture:
The first setup to make this is done on the CNC lathe. The outer profile, M7 drill and threading is done here, then it's parted off to the final length (second photo is right before the part off):
The back side is just drilled out for weight. No point in setting up the CNC for that, so I just knocked it out on the manual lathe:
Then on to the CNC mill to cut in a big circular profile so it mates up to the frame nicely:
And finally, the finished parts:
Galvanic corrosion is one issue with titanium on aluminum:
https://feoinc.com/learning-center/understanding-preventing-galvanic-co…
Typically, though, the bigger issue is galling:
https://www.boltdepot.com/fastener-information/materials-and-grades/thr…
For the amount of aluminum you buy, what % goes to product and what goes to recycling? Presumably big manufacturers employ computer models to minimize whatgoes to the melter.?
My favorite tool
https://www.luxonmx.com/product-luxon-ktm-husqvarna-gasgas-hpsd-weld-on…
It depends on the product. Our triple clamps only have about 14% of the material left when we're done. The other 86% turns into chips:
We usually order material in quantities of about 2,000 lbs. to get a good price break, which makes for a lot of chips! There's only so much we can do about that. The raw stock comes in 12' bars and in nominal inch sizes for width and thickness, typically half inch increments in the triple clamp sizes (so 2.0" x 3.5" x 12' for example). There's scrap in the cut length as your parts don't usually add up to 12' when all is cut up. That creates a shelf full of remnants that we use for smaller one-off parts or fixtures.
There's also scrap in the thickness and width. You have to buy material that's a little bigger than your end part, plus a little bit to hold on to in the mill vice. We don't do nearly enough quantity to justify it, but we could order custom extrusions to reduce the thickness to the minimum. We design the part to match nominal stock sizes where it makes sense and we're not compromising on the design otherwise. But usually we just design things how they should be, then size the raw stock to fit. It wastes some time in cutting away scrap, and some money in chips, but makes for a better part.
All the aluminum chips are collected and recycled. It gets us some money back (about 15% of the original cost), which is nice. Here I am stomping on the pile of chips in the bin trying to make more room:
Pit Row
Really makes me wonder about the cost difference between for example a cast clamp vs a machined one. Although, I can imagine a cast part using less raw material, the casting process also uses additional energy resources.
People don't like the ktm bolts because they are galvanized I think ? and don't look nice compared to the shiny bolts that come on Japanese bikes.
Does anyone know why ktm does it this way?
For example, a stock KTM bottom clamp probably requires 11 tools to machine in about 20 minutes of machine time. Ours require 27 tools and about 70 minutes of machine time. It's obvious why when you look at it, they're a lot more complex:
Regarding casting, the stock clamps on most bikes are actually forged. Sometimes the upper clamp is cast, but the lower is almost always forged. With either technique, you have to clean up the resulting casting/forging on a CNC machine to add holes and threads, clean up the fork tube clamp area, etc. Despite that, the process is a lot faster and less expensive than machining the entire clamp, which is why you see most OEMs doing it that way.
Ideally we'd forge our clamps. But we just don't have the volume to justify the extreme tooling costs to do that. And machining is very forgiving to design changes and updates.
https://www.vitalmx.com/features/The-Inside-Line-Podcast-Tech-Edition-T…
https://precision-rp.com/Parabolic-1-18-bar-complete-KTM-Husqvarna_p_31…
There are a couple issues with this damper for our bike, though:
1) It works with 1 1/8” bars, but I’m planning on running the Renthal FB36 bars. So we’re going to make some new parts to make that happen.
2) It doesn’t work with our bar mounts as it needs to clamp the bars. Our mounts are solid across the bottom, so we’re going to make something special for that too.
3) I don’t like bolt-on parts that can otherwise be welded on.
So first thing is to replace the frame clamp with a weld on part. This will be lighter, won’t ever come loose, increases clearance for everything else (clamps, knees, etc.), and looks a lot better.
I modeled up the relevant parts of the frame, steering bearings, etc. and designed a lower damper mount to replace the bolt-on version:
Here’s the CNC programming interface with the toolpaths shown:
And the finished part:
This is steel since we have to weld it to the steel frame, but only adds ~40g to the weight of the bike as I was rather aggressive at removing material, and arguably spent more time on this than I should have!
This really makes it easy to align in the right spot and straight along the centerline of the frame:
I just tack welded it on while it was jigged up, removed the jig, and finished the welding:
Good to go now and the frame is off to powder coat!
I had whipped up a coupe pieces on the lathe to block the powdercoat from the steering bearings and also loaded the frame up with old fasteners to make life easier on the powdercoat guys (and ensure masking was done right), so that made for an easy prep of the frame before putting things back together. All that was left was to hit the engine, subframe, and electrical mount areas with a Dremel for conductivity.
First parts to go on are the pegs so I can zip-tie the frame to the stand for stability. Motostuff sells these titanium Pro Pegs (https://motostuff.com/products/pro-pegs-titanium-footpegs) that we went with. I've used these same pegs on our 150 build and really like them. They're very similar to the Raptor pegs in size, weight, design, and quality, but a little cheaper.
And here's the damper post bolted up to its new home on the frame:
This is the exciting part as everything starts coming back together!
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