Michael Richard's Journal

OK finally I have settled on the wheels for the Jappic cyclekart. Believe me it ain't been easy. I kept going back to the scaling software I was using and came up with 18 inch wheels, so I looked some up and was watching them on Ebay, but something just kept nagging me. What nagged me was that magic number 17 that everyone is so hooked on. So in the spirit of the thing I started searching some more and found Honda cr80 17 inch front wheels for the front. They had a disc brake but the flanges for the disc mount can be machined off to give it that no front brake look, because the original had no front brakes. The rears were more standard fare so no need to go there. I have been scheming on a new way to mount the rears and will probably make my own flange mounts. I'll advise as time goes on, but I just can't feel comfortable with the standard mounting even though it is rather inexpensive, and torture tested. Unrelated, I have decided to incorporate a manual drum auxiliary rear brake/parking brake in the car making parking on a hill more comfortable and not having to prop it against something to keep it from rolling off. I don't run very fast anymore unless under direct fire, which seems to alleviate( although momentarily) all lack of speed and pain from old injuries.
I've pretty much got the front end sorted out on paper. Straight axle 1 1/2x.095 wall DOM tubing, bottom of said mounts to the forward spring ends and top mounts to the friction shocks via control arm and heim joints, which will allow me to tinker in the right caster angle. The KPI because of the mounting won't be much, and I've looked the original photo's over carefully and it doesn't look like it has any camber angle at all. Odd that by what I have read here so discussion is open on that. Toe in will be moderate because of the extended wheelbase, but I can tinker that in as needed. I have decided to step outside the original formula set out in the holy scriptures in a very few ways. Wheelbase is going to be long. It was in the original and I've cut it as much as I dare and keep the look that I love so much. O.A. length is outside the norm also because of this and that long swooping tail, again something I just love, long swooping tails, sounds nice doesn't it? I have also decided to ad a whiskey flask and holder for those moments when the driver will need comforting, or for medicinal purposes such as snow snake bites. More later.