AME Chopper Kit on a Trike

[sclarkfam]

Hello all, I am new to the forum so here goes:
I want to trike my wife's 2000 Sportster 1200C. I intend to use the Frankenstein Light Sport 34 inch rear. She wants the chopper look and I found the AME chopper kit. Was looking at the 14 deg rake and 8 inch over tubes. As I understand it, the AME kit retains the factory trail spec but do not know how the extended fork tubes come into play. I further understand that trikes are easier to steer with reduced trail. What I do not know is if anyone has tried the AME chopper kit on a trike and what steering issues await me. I want it to have the chopper look with good road manners. Recommendations please.

Steve

[Lucky]

Welcome glad you joined us.Sorry no help with your ?'s but some will probably have some answers.RIDE SAFE

[Gorilla]

Hello all, I am new to the forum so here goes:
I want to trike my wife's 2000 Sportster 1200C. I intend to use the Frankenstein Light Sport 34 inch rear. She wants the chopper look and I found the AME chopper kit. Was looking at the 14 deg rake and 8 inch over tubes. As I understand it, the AME kit retains the factory trail spec but do not know how the extended fork tubes come into play. I further understand that trikes are easier to steer with reduced trail. What I do not know is if anyone has tried the AME chopper kit on a trike and what steering issues await me. I want it to have the chopper look with good road manners. Recommendations please.

Steve

Sorry no help but Welcome aboard.

[John Luciano]

Wow 14 deg and 8" extension . U will need 40 acres to turn that rig around. Y so much rake 6deg will do it ?

[sclarkfam]

She wants it to look somewhat like the Precision Cycle Works (PCW) detroit chopper trike, therefore the raked front end.

http://www.dreammachinesusa.com/detroit-trike.asp

[Yogisan]

Hello all, I am new to the forum so here goes:
I want to trike my wife's 2000 Sportster 1200C. I intend to use the Frankenstein Light Sport 34 inch rear. She wants the chopper look and I found the AME chopper kit. Was looking at the 14 deg rake and 8 inch over tubes. As I understand it, the AME kit retains the factory trail spec but do not know how the extended fork tubes come into play. I further understand that trikes are easier to steer with reduced trail. What I do not know is if anyone has tried the AME chopper kit on a trike and what steering issues await me. I want it to have the chopper look with good road manners. Recommendations please.

Steve

I recommend that you give AMC a call. I was thinking about doing the same thing with my Lehman Suzuki trike and spent quite a bit of time on the phone with them. They were very helpful. Did I get one? No. Why not? Because I couldn't use the same OEM front end hardware (tube covers, headlight, etc.) on their chopper-style front end. I would have wound up, appearance-wise, with a slimmer, lighter looking front end with the rest of the trike having the OEM stocky look. It wouldn't have matched very well. Since my main objective was to improve the handling of the front end it was better for me to go with a Steerite raked triple tree and 2-inch tube extensions. That gave me the handling improvement and let me keep the OEM front end hardware to make the appearance consistant from front to rear.

You shouldn't have the same issue since you are obviously going with a less-stocky chopper look front to rear. Give AMC a call and get their input.

[sclarkfam]

Great advice and insight. I followed up and they claim several trike builders have used their 9 deg and 14 deg chopper kits with success. They recommended adding an additional 2inch length to the fork tubes over what would be used on a two wheeler. So for a 14 deg rake, use 10 inch over fork tubes. I didn't think that longer fork tubes effected trail but maybe I am wrong. At the end of the day, I want slightly reduced trail as that provided by the EZ steer kits, but I want that combined with the long chopper front end.

I saw a picture of another forum member's (JOKER) trike and it looks like what I am going for. Hopefully he will provide some insight into handling qualities with that front end.

Thanks again