Author Topic: APS/Ω Gas turbine bike build  (Read 932962 times)

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Offline SaltPeter

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Re: APS/Ω Gas turbine bike build
« Reply #930 on: March 02, 2015, 07:23:01 PM »
How good is that Anders ...... Proper Job  :cheers: :cheers: :cheers:

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Offline charlie101

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Re: APS/Ω Gas turbine bike build
« Reply #931 on: March 02, 2015, 08:57:37 PM »
Absolute amazing! Gratulerar till en framgångsrik men hårresande repa!
« Last Edit: March 02, 2015, 10:06:14 PM by charlie101 »

Offline SabreTooth

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Re: APS/Ω Gas turbine bike build
« Reply #932 on: March 03, 2015, 12:42:21 AM »
Congratulations Anders! That looked like a weekend well spent.

I continue to be in awe at your build skills and this thread is the one I keep coming back to for motivation.


Jim

Offline Mobacken Racing

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Re: APS/Ω Gas turbine bike build
« Reply #933 on: March 03, 2015, 01:09:01 AM »
Hi guys! I´ll try to answer the questions asked the best I can, if I forget someone please let me know.

PorkPie: The second track had a shorter acceleration lenght (1000m instead of 1500m) but with only bikes and sleds allowed that track was in much better shape when no cars had made deep tracks all over it.

Buickguy3: I did clip the flag pole at the end of the track, it broke a small part of the windscreen and left a red smear over the side of the fairing. 10cm to the left and it would have hit me flat in the head... :-)

Frank06: I don´t know, the guy who built them told me that this studding pattern was much more stable than many others so I guess it doesen´t get any better than this with home made spiked tyres at 200+km/h.

nanno: I have no idea about the power in the bike, I do know that there were many production bikes that ran slower than me and that a standard sports bike usually ends up around 200km/h in average. The engine characteristics are completely different to a piston engine so it is hard to compare, but perhaps somewhere between 100-140hp? I had a high 300km/h gearing fitted so with a lower gearing I would have gotten a higher power turbine RPM and much more power.

RansomT: It is a cheap china damper set to max, it has a little play in it so I will need to fit a better one. I held it fairly loosely so the front end could jump around a bit, if I had cramped the handlebars down I would probably have worsened the speed wobble.

bbarn: I agree with you that the bumps in the ice was what set the wobbles off, perhaps the steering geometry is a bit off and compressing the forks after havign the front wheel in the air only makes it worse. A shitty steering damper fails to stabilize the wobble and there it goes...

Anyway, I am totally amazed by the support I am getting from you guys. I´d recon that you have seen it all already and wouldn´t care much for a project like this but boy was I wrong. :-)

Cheers!
/Anders

Offline fredvance

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Re: APS/Ω Gas turbine bike build
« Reply #934 on: March 03, 2015, 10:30:45 AM »
Anders, you and your accomplishments are amazing. A lot of us kind of look at the stuff we see all the time as kind of ho hum. But a guy that hand builds his owm turbine motor and then puts it in a motorcycle and races on the ice, That is unique and really exciting.
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Offline manta22

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Re: APS/Ω Gas turbine bike build
« Reply #935 on: March 03, 2015, 10:53:49 AM »
"Anyway, I am totally amazed by the support I am getting from you guys. I´d recon that you have seen it all already and wouldn´t care much for a project like this but boy was I wrong."

Innovation, skill, and daring are always held in high regard, Anders.

Regards, Neil  Tucson, AZ
Regards, Neil  Tucson, AZ

Offline Mobacken Racing

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Re: APS/Ω Gas turbine bike build
« Reply #936 on: March 03, 2015, 04:39:16 PM »
Speed wobbles that I have encountered have been when the front end gets lights and then comes back in contact with the ground albeit slightly out of perfect alignment.  The design of the front end (rake/trail) naturally causes it to realign itself but may in fact over correct due to the momentum of the parts, setting up an oscillating motion.  In videos of the early British bikes, you can actually see one fork leg moving independently from the other - - very bad!  Newer front ends like yours are much stiffer and help but the steering damper is there to prevent the oscillations from continuing.  From earlier photos of your front end, it looks like your steering damper is connected very close to the centerline of the headstock.  It might help to make an clamp that will allow you to attach the end further away from the center which will make it more effective.  This should not be a problem for the travel of the damper because you have probably reduced the steering lock-to-lock rotation to a minimum.

That sounds exactly like what I experienced. Very good pointer about the positioning of the steering damper, I will get a high quality one and fit it to the fork leg to get it further from the steering center.

Offline Mobacken Racing

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Re: APS/Ω Gas turbine bike build
« Reply #937 on: March 03, 2015, 04:42:38 PM »
Congratulations Anders
Not many reach there target first time out  :cheers:

How did the jetkick and pulsejet go ?

Thanks!

The jetkick ran in the mid-120km/h, we estimated the afterburner size wrong so we were 200°C short of exhaust temp which made the engine lose lots of power. No damage at all to the engine so we just need to tighten the exhaust cone a bit and then we are ready for some 150+ runs.

The Pulsejet sled ran faster and faster all weekend, the last run peaked at 180km/h something so next year with a slightly larger engine they will definitively threaten my class record. :-)

Offline Mobacken Racing

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Re: APS/Ω Gas turbine bike build
« Reply #938 on: March 03, 2015, 04:49:23 PM »
Anders, you and your accomplishments are amazing. A lot of us kind of look at the stuff we see all the time as kind of ho hum. But a guy that hand builds his owm turbine motor and then puts it in a motorcycle and races on the ice, That is unique and really exciting.

I can agree that the concept is rather unique, I am glad that I have managed to prove that it has some potential as well.

After 6 years of jet kick racing we are held as some mad scientist guys who never make it to the finish line so it is very satisfying to actually have built something that runs fast.

"Anyway, I am totally amazed by the support I am getting from you guys. I´d recon that you have seen it all already and wouldn´t care much for a project like this but boy was I wrong."

Innovation, skill, and daring are always held in high regard, Anders.

Regards, Neil  Tucson, AZ


That is true, thanks for the praise.

Regarding the Omega engine class, how come electric and gas turbine engines are in the same class? Is it simply so that when the rules were written there was no one who thought that bikes would be powered by anything else than IC engines and therefore bundled the rest of the engine types in the same class?

Offline Mobacken Racing

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Re: APS/Ω Gas turbine bike build
« Reply #939 on: March 04, 2015, 10:05:42 AM »
No time to rest if I want the bike to be race ready this summer, I removed the engine from the frame today to do a complete check of the engine and drive train.



With the chain out of the way I could remove the secondary gearbox sprocket to check it for wear, I was quite nervous when I turned it over since I sort of expected to find grinded down teeth all blue from overheating...



What a pleasant surprise, not much wear at all! A slight polished surface but no wear to speak of. The magnetic plug has some fine metal dust on it but no rastafari haircut so it is as expected from new gears.



The pinion gear is a bit more polished but still no direct wear or signs of heat, the 2bar oil jet lubrication must be working. If any gear expert have an opinion I would like to hear it.

Time to pull the cover of the engine, the first thing I found was some wooden chips that must have gotten into the air box when we cut wood for the oil drum BBQ. :-)



I didn´t have time to pull the rotor out of the shaft tunnel, but there is a clear leak behind the turbine wheel past the piston ring seal.



I am not sure why the leak only gets serious at high boost pressures, it has never leaked any oil during the stationary tests at low P2´s but after both Speed Weekend runs the entire rear of the bike was smeared in oil that must have been coming out past the engine cover O-ring seal around the compressor housing.

Perhaps the air pressure gets into the oil scavenge line and puts a back pressure in the oil sump so the oil gets forced out through the shaft seals? Could the scavenge pumps even be restricting the oil flow back to the oil tank at higher boost pressures? Plenty of food for thought.

Cheers!
/Anders

Offline Mobacken Racing

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Re: APS/Ω Gas turbine bike build
« Reply #940 on: March 06, 2015, 05:00:08 PM »
I disassembled the gearbox today and have taken a couple of more pictures of the gears for inspection.



The wear on the pinion is even and very shallow, it is difficult to take pictures of shiny surfaces but I can´t see that the teeths are worn more in any certain location.



The larger sprocket has also a very even wear pattern, the darker radius on the left on the teeths isn´t visibly worn more but only a difference in colour. You can see the original surface between the teeths where there are stains of rust, higher up the teeths are evenly worn all along their lengths.



For a novice such as I the wear looks pretty acceptable, but please comment if you have an opinion.



I figured out a better way to lock the freepower turbine centrum bolt in place, earlier there was a hole drilled through the bolt head but it was a pain in the arse to get all four holes to align so I grinded a slot in the bolt head instead.



Finally I have found a reason for the massive oil leakage during running, earlier this winter I ruptured the tank during a run thanks to an overly restrictive oil tank ventilation hose. I must have overlooked one crack because while pressure testing the tank I found a >10cm long crack in a weld on the side of the tank.



I had pretty much filled the tank with oil before the race, and when the oil was being forced rearwards during acceleration the oil must have sprayed out through the crack. I have never had a leak during static running and if the leak was internal as I believed up until now the engine should have smoked like mad, everything points towards an external leak and I think I just found it! :-)

Cheers!
/Anders

Offline Rex Schimmer

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Re: APS/Ω Gas turbine bike build
« Reply #941 on: March 07, 2015, 03:26:09 PM »
Anders,
Do you do anything with the fork and the steering dampener oil to compensate for the cold temperature? I would think that you would want to use something VERY thin when the temps are at -10-30 deg C!

Rex
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Offline Mobacken Racing

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Re: APS/Ω Gas turbine bike build
« Reply #942 on: March 07, 2015, 03:48:36 PM »
Anders,
Do you do anything with the fork and the steering dampener oil to compensate for the cold temperature? I would think that you would want to use something VERY thin when the temps are at -10-30 deg C!

Rex

The temperature at the race was actually 2-3°C so no freezing temps this year, the last couple of winters have been very mild.

I blame the chinese steering damper for the handling problems during the runs, I will fit an Öhlins quality damper before next race and see if the handling improves.

Offline Mobacken Racing

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Re: APS/Ω Gas turbine bike build
« Reply #943 on: March 08, 2015, 03:25:29 PM »
I shimmed the crown gear 0.2mm closer to the pinion gear and got an acceptable play, 0.1mm more and I started to feel a resistance while turning the shafts.



I have also assembled the gas producer since there was nothing wrong with it, I just cleaned the wooden chips out of the cover and sealed it with some liquid red silicone to avoid any small air leaks around the O-ring seal.



Finally I welded the oil tank crack, I have yet to test the tank with shop air but I´ll do that before I assemble everything again. I am not really in a hurry since the next race is 5 months from now, but as soon as I have the bike ready I can start working on the Rolls Royce Viper engine.



Cheers!

Offline RansomT

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Re: APS/Ω Gas turbine bike build
« Reply #944 on: March 08, 2015, 03:38:11 PM »

I blame the chinese steering damper for the handling problems during the runs, I will fit an Öhlins quality damper before next race and see if the handling improves.

My friend be careful here.  While the cheap damper (or mounting angle) is probably the issue, a "good firm quality" damper can magnify the issue if the problem is in the frame alignment or setup.  A controllable wobble turns into an uncontrollable weave very quickly.