[Iron Jungle] just finished building this gear indicator for his motorcycle. It uses a red 7-segment display to show the rider what gear is currently engaged. This hack is pretty common and makes us wonder why all motorcycles don’t come standard with the feature? But then again, if they did you wouldn’t have a reason to hack them.

The motorcycle does have a gear sensor; apparently it only lacks a way to display this data. The sensor outputs a signal between 0 and 5V which [Iron Jungle] reads using a PICAXE 18M2 microcontroller. Patching into that signal wasn’t hard at all. Once he found the correct wire he simply removed a portion of the insulation and soldered a lead to the conductor. This should stand up to the vibrations encountered in an automotive application like this one. Since the computing power is already there, he also included a DS18B20 to take ambient air temperature readings. Check out the quick demo after the break.

This is not the first time we’ve seen the V-Storm get a custom gear indicator. But if you really want to go all out, perhaps you need to build an interface for your tablet or smart phone. Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes you don’t need a lot of horsepower to win a speed record. In a fluke of no one else competing in the alt fuel class,  [John]‘s biodiesel motorcycle set a new land speed record at the LTA event last summer.

[John]‘s bike is a junkyard 1978 Kawasaki KZ400. The stock engine was replaced with a Chinese knock off of a Yanmar air-cooled diesel motor. The fuel is regular old vegetable oil. From the looks of the exhaust, we’re assuming [John]‘s garage has a rich french fry smell to it.

Compared to highway speeds, [John]‘s runs for a land speed record are a little absurd – a nice bonus when you’re the only driver in your class. The first pass of 42 mph was a little disappointing, so [John] removed the fender, tail light and brakes. After all the unnecessary weight was removed, the top speed – and new record – was 56.5 mph.

Converting a diesel car to run on french fry oil is great and a lot better for the environment than burning liquefied dinosaurs. In any event, a green motorcycle is a lot better than 2000 pounds of automobile moving less than 200 pounds of person. Check out a few of [John]‘s land speed runs after the break.

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[TZ] has been using ATtiny microcontrollers to read and pass along data from his Harley Davidson motorcycle. The image you see above is using an ATtiny 4313 to read data from the J1850 bus.

The J1850 protocol is an older standard which may not be available in newer vehicles. But if your vehicle has it, you may be able to tap into the bus through an ODB-II connector. [TZ] is decoding the data with the 4313, then using an inexpensive Bluetooth module to send the information to an Android tablet. Fortunately, someone has already written a nice GUI to display the speed and tachometer.

This isn’t the only approach to data harvesting with an ATtiny chip that he’s explored. There’s a second video after the break that shows a much more complicated setup. It still harvests the J1850 data in the same way, but also uses additional I2C sensors and an embedded ARM board to gather GPS data. Everything is pushed to his smart phone, which displays current gear, RPM, speed, engine temperature, fuel level, and GPS information via a WiFi connection.

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Although a V-12 engine is always nice, cramming one into a motorcycle definitely qualifies as an engine hack! [Allen Millyard], wasn’t satisfied with the standard number of cylinders (6!) on his already gigantic Kawasaki KZ1300. Like any reasonable person, he decided to graft two of their powerplants together!

In true engine hacker form, inspiration struck at a classic bikes show when someone said “Suppose you’re going to make a V-12 next, then?” [Allen] replied that it would be impossible, but after this conversation, he reportedly had to build one. By the time the show ended he’d figured out how to do it. Lots of work and two six-cylinder engines later, [Allen] had proven this task to be possible.

Although this may seem like a very extreme motorcycle engine hack, [Allen] has done quite a few motorcycle engine mods, making v-twins out of a pair of single-cylinder engines and a V-eight from two four-cylinder engines. Check out the video of his latest beast after the break! Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a little eye candy for motorcycle enthusiasts everywhere. This is the newest iteration of [Julian's] electric motorcycle. He obviously knows what he’s doing because everything fits into the frame in a way that is still very pleasing to the eye. But this is actually slimmed down from the original design. If you take a look a back at some of his older posts you’ll see that the four relatively small lithium batteries are a new addition.

The frame was designed to hold four lead-acid batteries. Those things really take up a lot of space and add considerable weight to the vehicle. His recent upgrade was also accompanied by a re-gearing that allows him to reach higher speeds (although he doesn’t say what the top speed actually is). You can’t really see it above, but [Julian] included a wooden insert where the tank on a gasoline motorcycle would have been. It houses control switches as well as a 48V voltmeter. It’s a fantastic finishing touch like the cherry on a sundae.

Those who frequently work with them will tell you that rubber chickens are actually pretty heavy. You’re not going to do much damage chucking them by hand and that’s why you need your own rubber chicken launcher. This most-excellent magazine-fed foul-flinger was built by artist [Sean Pace] as a senior project while working toward his fine arts degree at UNC Asheville. He reused the rear end of a motorcycle, purposing the spinning wheel to grab the birds out of an in-feed channel and fling them much like a mechanical football launcher would. It kind of makes us wonder if you could do the same thing with a pneumatic football launcher?

[Sean's] contraption is built on a stationary base, but in the video after the break you can see it firing from a flatbed truck. Seems somewhat like a whimsical warthog if you’re a Halo fan.

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[Winfred] was thinking one day, of how the world would be a different place if everything we owned had little start up and shut down sounds like our computers. Historically computers would just beep after passing their power on self test, and many PC’s still do, but in the 1980′s as machines became more powerful and home users wanted more flexibility in their hardware, startup chimes started to creep into our lives. And why not extend that little moment of joy to other objects, like adding Windows XP startup and shutdown sounds to your motorcycle.

Electronically the bill of materials looks like hobby shop catalog, featuring a Freeduino (Arduino variant), Adafruit wave shield, marine speakers, and a cheap-o mp3 amplifier from ebay. While admittedly not the cheapest way to play an audio clip [Winfred] offers a few suggestions to help drop the 100$ price tag, including just skipping it all together and mimicking the sounds with your voice.

Its a fun idea, its sure to earn some odd looks from his neighbors, and it will probably make you chuckle a little too.

This little board serves as a current gear indicator for a motorcycle. It was designed with the Suzuki V-Storm motorcycles in mind as they have a sensor built into the gearbox. Other gear indicators rely on sensors on the shifters themselves, but reading the voltage level from a gearbox sensor gives much more reliable information.

The voltage measurement is handled by an ATmega88 microcontroller which in turn drives the 8×8 LED display. Also built into the system is a temperature sensor and photoresistor. The firmware takes advantage of both of these inputs, displaying temperature when in sixth gear or at the push of a button, and dimming the display based on ambient light. There are also settings for screen rotation, and user preferences.

We didn’t find schematics or software but this should be pretty easy to replicate. If you need a primer for AVR programming we’ve got you covered.

[Thanks Michal]