Akira Bike Project - 23 - engine reduction cage - part 3

Welcome Akira Bike Project and Recumbent / Feet Forward Motorcycle fans and the curious!
In this video I make further progress on the engine reduction cage, which reduces the engine output RPM and increases torque to handle the much larger rear wheel. I'll be mounting the large sprocket, fabricating bearing mounting housings for the sprocket and output shaft, and mounting and testing the output shaft.
Follow along while I'm designing and building a fully functional high performance recumbent (aka feet forward) motorcycle ready for production that is aesthetically inspired by Kaneda's ride in "Akira" in this ambitious and unique motorcycle project.
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[＃AKIRA](kzbin.infoakira)
アキラバイクプロジェ
アキラ
オートバイ
かねだ
もとびけ
バイク
akira,kaneda,motorcycle,recumbent,chopper,otomo,cyberpunk,diy,garage,project,maker
アキラ, アキラバイクプロジェ, かねだ

[@ThemanIhomme]

Epic man❤

[@gyansharma7533]

You are going good job

[@gyansharma7533]

Keep up the good work

[@matus1976]

Thanks, will do!

[@DarthKross]

Just found this channel. The work is really impressive so far. I will be watching your career with great interest. Subscribed

[@matus1976]

Awesome, thank you!

[@hazanko5875]

Always nice to see some progress on this one.

[@MrJakeCT]

It's great to see the progress you are making, I still remember the chassis when you were living in Baltic, CT. =)

[@matus1976]

Those were the days! Took a while to get ramped up but things are going great now.

[@fladoodel]

This is epic

[@Doomacam]

I was watching @GrindHardPlumbingCo 's new video where they put a CBR1000 engine on a Honda ruckus scooter. It has the kind of look of it with the open rear tire, long tail end with the engine, and an open floor sitting style of a scooter which is like halfway between recumbent and a regular motorcycle. If the rider was just sat lower and more inside the bike it might look closer to the Akira bike. The more I think about it the less I think it looks like it, but it still inspired me to take a look if someone was building a properly scaled Kaneda Bike. So here I am! Awesome work. Only question I have is: Why the square tubing? I'm guessing it's for R&D to just get all the components in the right place. I feel like other people would go straight for round tubing on a custom job like this, but if you're planning on making it into production, I can see why you might go with square tubing. I just think round tubing looks a lot better. This project will have body panels and such, but I feel it would complete the look if it was round stock as the frame.

[@matus1976]

Awesome - welcome to the project! glad you found it. I'll check that build out you mentioned, It's weird how close so many people come to a good design but then just zip off in some odd seating or geometry that makes it uncomfortable or unusable. I think it really needs to be designed from the ground up to do it right, instead of aiming for "minimal chopping" of some existing design(s). And yup, the square tubing is absolutely because it's a development prototype, I'll probably stick with it for the first gen kit bike version, but in the high end weight and performance optimized, it's absolutely going to be bent round tubing. I all ready have most of the design worked out, just waiting on finalizing everything from the prototype development. The benefit / cost (in terms of design and fabrication) of square vs round just made square more sensible in prototype dev where you might have to cut and move things multiple times. Same reason why I'm holding off on fabricating composite panels and molds. Don't want to have to move a frame bar and inch and then make a mold I spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars useless.

[@sunshineandsmiles9668]

Usually, i find beauty in simplicity. however, you are changing my mind. It is good to have metal, for our hands would possibly create problems instead of cool stuff.

[@matus1976]

It's a fine line to walk - I try to make it only exactly as complex as necessary. I do think complexity toward a meaningful goal can have it's own beauty though too.

[@fladoodel]

This is gonna blow up

[@matus1976]

I hope you mean in popularity, and not physically explode lol

[@chrisbrookshire861]

That is steampunk af.

[@fladoodel]

Those difficult to access bolts are going to become a real problem

[@matus1976]

They are accessible but not fun, I'm more concerned about them vibrating loose or not being able to handle the shock loads. But worse case I can just weld all the plates in place.

[@fladoodel]

@@matus1976 can't wait to see the finished product. You should make a mold and make fiberglass body panels for it too

[@matus1976]

@@fladoodel oh yeah absolutely going to be making molds, that will probably be in the phase II or III prototype. Problem with the molds is any change you make on the frame/bike will likely have major impact on the body panels and making molds and plugs is a huge endeavor. So I want to have the frame and geometry finalized before making molds. I will be hand making some composite airducts for the split radiators very soon though.

[@custombikesandtrikes4374]

You do beautiful work and you make really nice videos but some of your stuff is so ridiculously over-complicated and it doesn't have to be that way. I do like the fact that you have removable pieces. We are all going to be dead by the time you get done with the bike 😂. I have built several recumbent motorcycles and I have learned that, many times the simplest answer is the best with fabrication. Hurry up man I want to see a test drive😎

[@vicarofleng23]

Why rush, making things is fun

[@custombikesandtrikes4374]

@@vicarofleng23 I absolutely agree with you, I have more fun building than I do riding my creations. This particular bike of his has been years in the making literally and I was only half joking when I said we'll all be dead by the time he finished it.

[@matus1976]

haha tough crowd! yeah I'm working on it, theres some good progress now and more videos almost done, just this part took an extended amount of time. It's not really more complex than it needs to be given what I'm doing and my fabrication capacity, but I totally get that concern as more of the context hasn't been shared yet. Just have a little faith and you'll be rewarded..

[@MrJakeCT]

Hi @@matus1976 , hope you are well! If I recall, from years ago your plan was always to build it, then optimize it correct? I know from some of the other projects I've seen you do over the years the time and complexity to build something is always part of the bigger strategy.

[@matus1976]

@@MrJakeCT I'm good, hope you are too! email me, let's catch up! That's exactly right though, going through a couple phases / bigger long term plans. The first is not weight or performance optimized and many of the features I want to add arent there yet, I want to make sure the platform and basic geometry is good. After that it's going to evolve through multiple phases with different complete bikes getting tested.