It would be nice if you could incorporate the chaincase and bearing mounts into the same alu plate so everything stayed aligned.
Here’s what a friends Pro chassis weighed. It had coolers but no running boards. Figure a couple pounds for boards and we’ll say 58 lbs total.
And my Nytro when I disassembled it. The rear cooler was 4.85 and the front cooler was 3.35 plus hoses and bottle, so probably 10 lbs total for the cooling system and the seat was 2 lbs. So my chassis without the cooling and seat would be 60 lbs.
I’d like to be about 20 lbs less than my Nytro was. Nytro has inner chaincase built in so Nyper would have to be weighed with the inner chaincase half on to be equal. This is going to be tough to do. I want the Nyper to be bulletproof so I’m using a little thicker tubing throughout.
I lowered the 1” alu tube to where I jigged the boards, and dropped the string line in the back a little so it better matched the header mount angle.
I calculated 15 sq ft for the tunnel if I were to do a complete aluminum tunnel with only chromoly boards.
.050 would be 10.5 lbs
.063 would be 13.2 lbs
.080 would be 16.8 lbs
.0625 UHMW is only .333 lbs/sq ft but offers zero additional strength. It would be good for nothing other than blocking snow.
Going back and forth, these are the pro’s I can see for using an aluminum tunnel.
- can bolt the header directly to it
- can bolt the gas tank directly to it
- can rivet the rear cooler to it and alu helps dissipate heat
- much less tubing and welding required
- adds strength to the overall structure
- cheaper than carbon and will last longer
Cons
- not very high tech
- weight
- needs to be coated to keep snow from sticking. Vinyl wrap is probably the lightest
I’m going to use 1” x .049 for the lower tubes (from tube below motor to rear bumper). Steering hoop will be 1” x .058, chaincase hoops 1” x .058 and the front spars probably 1” x .035. I think the tubing would be strong enough that I could get away with a .050 tunnel.