Current status (2024): Paused
This project is unlikely to resume any time soon, if ever, but for some reason this page seems to get a lot of traffic so I shall keep it up.
Plans For Another Trike
Obviously we're not gonna be content with just one trike so here are some ideas we've had for the next one. We're thinking of using a 2 litre straight four transit engine to build a normal (one wheel at the front, two at the back) trike. This is obviously just a little more powerful than the 125cc motorbike engine of the first trike. This is to be a much more conventional design than the current one and we're considering if it's worth putting in the time and money required to make it road legal. At the moment it doesn't look too likely but we'll just have to wait and see.
Update February 2009
Decided we're definately going to build a second, much less bodged, trike. Possibly based around a BMW 3 series or similar but failing that we'll go for something older and more basic (and less fun) like a Ford Capri. Two wheels at the back, one at the front, rear wheel drive with 1.6L petrol engine. Probably going to be a tubular steel chassis and weigh about 500 kg for the whole thing. Can't really do that much until we get a donor car but we expect to make a start this summer (2009 in case I'm too lazy to update this page).
Update May 2010
Well it's now 2010 and we have settled on a design for the new trike (well, it's been pretty much stable for over a year so I'd call that settled). We're still going to use the Ford Transit engine (2.0 Pinto) and whilst using the rear end from a BMW five series would be very nice (it's all self contained in a rectangular frame that looks like it should just bolt straight on) we've acquired a 1988 Ford Granada. The Granada should work nicely but since it's not so compact we'll need a bit more work to make it fit. The gear ratios in the differential work out nicely allowing us to use the four-speed gearbox that came with the transit engine. Incidentally using a van gearbox puts the gear lever in a much more reasonable position than a similar rear wheel drive gearbox from a car.
In terms of progress we have done most of the design work, removed the transit engine and got it running, and acquired/built a lot of the tools and other prerequisites for work to begin. Still remaining is to finish building a compressor, a plasma cutter and a tube bender. In time they will probably all have their own pages.
Given that the engine last ran over 13 years ago it started up pretty easily. The first run was filmed and a short video clip is available to download. This test run was necessarily short since there was no water in the block but later testing with a radiator connected up has allowed us to run it for much longer and no problems were observed.
Update March 2024
The project is on permanant hold, the Granada has been scrapped, and the other pieces acquired are in storage and may get sold. Building any kind of road-legal vehicle and getting it through the SVA process is more work than we are likely to have time for any time soon.