DaJuice and Cruzin need a fuel cell

[fljab]

And don't forget to heed the requirements for baffling and venting in your design. Folks have failed Tech Inspection before for these items.

WC,

I have never ralley'd, but want to be able to, so this brings up another question I have been wanting to put to you about baffling.

The "stock" cells often come with foam. I had a 5 gallon cell on another bike and had constant problems with bits of it plugging/restricting flow (I did use a filter). An old circle track guy in a NAPA store said that what they did was remove the foam (for the same reason) and for baffles used the plastic 1 qt oil containers that have been cut here and there so they don't retain/pocket fuel. It really is a good solution IMO and want to know if you've seen this and think it would be legal for IBA/something you'd pass.

I can send pics if you want to show you what I mean. On the 5 gallon Summit cell I basically just cut and installed as many as I could get in there. Fuel don't slosh and no "bits" of stuff in the fuel line/filter as the foam did.

If I went with the 4 gallon cell for the FJR, I had planned on doing this to it, so, inquiring minds want to know...

 

[Cruzin]

...question is, what's that extra ~.8 gallon worth to ya...

Exactly, Cruzin and I are designing what we want, if it is going to cost an extra $500 to get that extra .8 gallons then my bike will have an RCI on it.

As will mine

DaJuice has the more techinical, technical inspection I'm guessing next summer, I'm doing the Spank I didn't get in to the IB5K :angry: Butt we both do rally riding so it will be up to IBA rules.

 

[DaJuice]

I talked to Bennett Machine Works this morning. He is going to send me a drawing of the base of the tank so I can set it on my bike to see how close it would be to the Givi grabrails. If it does not fit they would be willing to modify a design to fit. However, they want $1100 for the cell not including the paint. He said they'd be willing to offer a discount if we'd get 4 or 5 people together for a group buy. At that price even with a great discount, this is out of my price range. I'm out.

 

[JamesK]

Damn, that's a crap load of $ these days, so I guess we're back to a homemade alternative.

 

[Warchild]

How's about some low-cost alternatives such as these below from https://www.summitracing.com ?

This one is appealing to you Givi owners due to the slanted build (allowing you to open the box without striking the Givi lid). The challenge would be to build a rack high enough to clear the Givi mount:

Aluminum 4-gallon cell, Black Powdercoated, $175.95

Don't care about the 11.5 gal IBR rule, but want the max range you can get without going completely insane on the size? How about a Polyethylene 5-gallon cell, $135.95

 

[JamesK]

How's about some low-cost alternatives such as these below from https://www.summitracing.com ?
This one is appealing to you Givi owners due to the slanted build (allowing you to open the box without striking the Givi lid). The challenge would be to build a rack high enough to clear the Givi mount:

....

How about using an OEM rear seat pan (strip of the plastic) as the mounting rack, would that be sufficiently sturdy/pass IBR inspection?

 

[JamesK]

Dale is there any method that Tom and you would accept (without doing the volume test) to baffle a bigger tank to bring the capacity down to within IBR limits?

 

[Warchild]

How about using an OEM rear seat pan (strip of the plastic) as the mounting rack, would that be sufficiently sturdy/pass IBR inspection?

Sorry, no, it would not.

 

[Warchild]

Dale is there any method that Tom and you would accept (without doing the volume test) to baffle a bigger tank to bring the capacity down to within IBR limits?

You would be subject to the test, BUT... here's a way that would satisfy both your needs and our requirements.

Let's say you are going for the classic 5-gall cell such as the Summit Racing cell here:

This cell is rated at 5 gallons, giving you 11.6 gallon capacity before fuel lines/filters/etc. Thus, you would be 0.1 gallon over the limit. You can just run the cell as it is until you get selected for the IBR or some other sanctioned event adhering to the 11.50 gallon limit.

Then, PRIOR to pulling up to the event's Start Line for tech inspection..... you want to introduce a closed vessel into the cell interior (one that is impervious to gasoline, obviously) that is large enough to take up ~ 0.2 gallons of fuel (a bit under 26 fluid ounces). In the past, we have made riders insert a large can of Alpo dog food (or some similar steel can) to displace enough volume to bring them under the 11.50 gallon limit. But not before giving them a blast of **** for arriving with an overcapacity cell, mind you. :lol:

Ideally, in order to make your Tech Inspector happy, you want a displacement vessel that can't be withdrawn via the normal filler opening. In that scenario, you would temporarily remove the 12 fasteners around the filler ring, insert your vessel, then re-assemble the filler ring.

 

[DaJuice]

How's about some low-cost alternatives such as these below from https://www.summitracing.com ?...Don't care about the 11.5 gal IBR rule, but want the max range you can get without going completely insane on the size? How about a Polyethylene 5-gallon cell, $135.95

We have considered all of those. In fact the 4 gallon version is the top picture on the blog page I linked to in the 1st post. I have Behmer's RCI version of that cell in my garage too, the one he used to take him to a 10th place finish in the 2009 IBR. On the blog page I have some photo's of the cell sitting on my bike. The bracketing between the genI and genII need to be completely different but it does look ok, just not as clean as the T shaped design I'm looking at right now. This is my backup plan if the cost of building the Warchild clone gets to be too much $$$.

I also looked at buying the 5 gallon aluminum version and cutting it down to make it 4.8 gallons but I didn't like the 12x12 footprint, Seems like the best fit on the bike is 10 front to back. We have 3 different people looking at what it would cost them to weld my design. I'm hopefully going to make a decision within the next 2 weeks but the early indications are that this cell is going to fit in my price range.

 

[DaJuice]

Well, I outsmarted myself with excel in my initial volume calculator I made. The cell is going to have to get a little bigger (same basic shape). I noticed that when I threw it in CAD this evening and did a MASSPROP. I need to do a few more iterations on the height to get the volume correct but I have what looks to be a nearly complete model. I'll render it soon and post a pic.

I need to figure out what the baffles should look like. My 1st thought was to cut a plate the same dims as the interior of the tank lengthwise and water jet a half moon looking thing in each of the sides. Then, a suggestion I was given was to take two identical "sticks" and weld them together to make an X. Will either of these options be acceptable? Is there a guide for how much open space the baffle should have?

Last question for the day... Is one baffle down the center of a cell this shape sufficient?

 

[Bearly Flying]

I went with the X shaped baffles, helps stiffen the side plates and reduce any sloshing effect in pretty much any direction.

 

[DaJuice]

This is what I came up with for baffles after getting some feedback from a few people. It currently has a 1/2" of clearance between the top of the baffle on the top of the cell, I figured it would act as a weir while filling if the triangular pieces didn't allow enough flow. Opinions?

 

[Warchild]

I went with the X shaped baffles, helps stiffen the side plates and reduce any sloshing effect in pretty much any direction.

Outstanding, Barely Flying.... X-crossed baffles are the way to fly, no question!

DaJuice, you may want to consider introducing a few more pass-through openings so that fill-up times are not interminable... not many, just a few.

Maybe 3 or so... say about nickle-size in diameter... kinda like this:

 

[Ignacio]

Not that I think you should copy a MacAvan, but mine appears to be split into quarters. The main one splits the longest dimension in half and is tack welded in 6 or 8 places around the perimiter. The other baffle from left to right seems to be two pieces and tacked to the first baffle and inside of the tank. My understanding is that only one baffle is technically required, but these two baffles seem to really add strength to my cell.

While I think the single baffle appears to be top to bottom at least one of the other two baffles appears relief cut because the filler would cut into it.

At the bottom of each baffle is one or two small 1/2 triangle notches. They don't have to be big because you can turn on a fuel hose full bore and it goes through what appear to be three notches fine. Small notches I'm sure help with slosh.

I think your cutaway would work pretty well.

 

[DaJuice]

How about this...

The circle on the top is where I'm going to put the RCI filler neck. That is not the size of the hole I need, just the overall footprint of the flange. The cylinder above the filler neck is where we plan on putting the vent fitting. Depending on what the bracket ends up looking like I'm thinking it will have a slight slope either to the front or the back and would put the outlet connection on the bottom face on the lower side.

CAD is telling me I'm at 4.82 gallons and all of the outside dimensions are very nice round numbers. I'm certain I'm going to loose some considerable volume by the time I put the bends in the side and get the welds built up. I think I know the answer to this but should I shave a 1/16th inch off the height to get the CAD volume below 4.80? I'm going to put either 1/4 or 1/2" radius on the bends, depends on what the guy bending it suggests.

We are starting to buy material. Cruzin bought most of the fittings we'd need and I'm going to buy the sheet soon. He is also playing around with some scrap aluminum to figure out the mount. I can mock up something in CAD of that too.

 

[fljab]

Looks great!

So, how many of these things are you making?

 

[Cruzin]

Looks great!
So, how many of these things are you making?

At least 2 :yahoo:

 

[Joe2Lmaker]

I went with the X shaped baffles, helps stiffen the side plates and reduce any sloshing effect in pretty much any direction.

Outstanding, Barely Flying.... X-crossed baffles are the way to fly, no question!

Easy to make

Strong

Cheap

DaJuice, what CAD are you using?

 

[DaJuice]

DaJuice, what CAD are you using?

AutoCAD 2009. The effect I applied is called X-Ray. I was asking our lead designer at work how to do a section of an ISO view and explained why... then he showed me this hidden visual effects tab on the tool pallet that Autodesk added at some point and I'm like... hey... that is exactly what I wanted but didn't think ACAD could do that. It is the only CAD application that I have access to or have even seen in use. We mainly use ACAD and Microstation but we have Inventor and Solid Works too. Everything gets converted to a dwg before I look at it. AutoCAD sucks for 3D modeling compared to the rest I'm told, but I'm working with what I got.

What are you using?