Bolt on Engine Mounting Plate Adapter

[Recon_Kart]

Hi, I bought a new 30 series torque converter for my firefox 620 go kart with 6hp Mitsubishi engine.

The sprocket on Torque Converter does not line up with the axle sprocket. The driven pulley also does not clear the axle sprocket. The easiest solution I can think of would be to raise the motor 1-2" and move it 1-2" closer to the axle sprocket.

I would prefer not to have to fab something myself as I don't have a lot of machining tools. Any recommendations on a universal bolt on adapter that will allow me to achieve what I described above? Or any other suggestions? Thanks

 

[madprofessor]

Got a 4.5" or other angle grinder? Link below is the one I've been using for several years, currently on my 3rd one. I burned up the 1st, my fault. 2nd just got used way, way past when it should have worn out. 2 of them were even bought with a coupon for $9.99 sale.
4.3 Amp 4-1/2 in. Slide Switch Angle Grinder (harborfreight.com)
Simple and cheap metal cutoff wheels in it can slot out a motor mounting plate with new slots, or expand old ones.
Cut-off Wheels - 4-1/2" Cut-off Wheels for Metal, Pack of 10 (harborfreight.com)

 

[panchothedog]

Go Power Sports and OMB warehouse both sell a plate made just for this. It has slots for and aft and side to side. I have a fire Fox 620 and put a predator
with a torque converter on it and it helped everything line up real good.
BTW I threw the Mitsubishi engine away.

 

[Recon_Kart]

Go Power Sports and OMB warehouse both sell a plate made just for this. It has slots for and aft and side to side. I have a fire Fox 620 and put a predator
with a torque converter on it and it helped everything line up real good.
BTW I threw the Mitsubishi engine away.

Thanks for the info. I will look this up. I've had a very good experience with this 6hp Mitsubishi. The original torque converter went out on the kart back in 2018 and the kart has been sitting since. I started it for the 1st time in 3 years last week with no problems. Is the plate you are talking about advertised for a predator engine?

 

[Recon_Kart]

Thanks for the info. I will look this up. I've had a very good experience with this 6hp Mitsubishi. The original torque converter went out on the kart back in 2018 and the kart has been sitting since. I started it for the 1st time in 3 years last week with no problems. Is the plate you are talking about advertised for a predator engine?

Do you by chance have a link for the specific plate you're talking about?

 

[madprofessor]

Adjustable Engine Mounting Plate for Predator 212cc Engines. (ombwarehouse.com)
Torque Converter Riser Plate With Hardware - OMBWarehouse.com
Fully Adjustable Motor Plate, Small Block - GoPowerSports.com
Mega Moto 80/105 Adjustable Motor Mount Kit - GoPowerSports.com

 

[Recon_Kart]

Adjustable Engine Mounting Plate for Predator 212cc Engines. (ombwarehouse.com)
Torque Converter Riser Plate With Hardware - OMBWarehouse.com
Fully Adjustable Motor Plate, Small Block - GoPowerSports.com
Mega Moto 80/105 Adjustable Motor Mount Kit - GoPowerSports.com

Thanks a lot for the links!

 

[panchothedog]

Madprofessor Thank You for posting those links for Recon Kart. Those are
exactly the parts I was trying to explain to him. I know a little bit about engine
building and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about using the internet and am probably too old to learn. Once again, thanks for helping out.

 

[madprofessor]

Pancho, try this............I click on the little icon that's always there at the bottom of my screen for the internet. With my "Windows 10" system that came on this computer, it's a round blue and green swirl. Clicking that I get 2 things, the big blank line across the top where I can type in web addresses like "www.imsoconfused.com" or such, and I never use it to find stuff. There's another shorter blank line further down that says "Search the web" which is what's used for searches, mines "Bing", there's "Google", etc., doesn't matter. I can type in "gokart parts suppliers" for example, and there's a whole long list of dealer sites for me to choose from, whatever looks promising, and I click on it. If no help, I go back to the search and click on something else. That simple.

 

[Recon_Kart]

Go Power Sports and OMB warehouse both sell a plate made just for this. It has slots for and aft and side to side. I have a fire Fox 620 and put a predator
with a torque converter on it and it helped everything line up real good.
BTW I threw the Mitsubishi engine away.

Did you have any issues with the torque converter clearing the oil dipstick on the predator engine? The backing plate of the 30 series torque converter I have for the 6hp Mitsubishi only fits with the oil dipstick removed. Looks like I would need a M20 - 2.5 plug but cant seem to find that size.

 

[panchothedog]

Yes, on the predator and also a clone engine I have had to grind off part of the plug handle. I think on one of them I also ground off a little of the backing plate.
Am still able to remove to check oil level.

 

[madprofessor]

The cheap ebay Chinese 30 series TC's I've been using have a fairly excessive amount of hefty "blades" (6-7 maybe ?) on the backside of the backplate that constitute a boss for the jackshaft bearings. That kind of thing causes a lot of grief for people trying to position and mount their TC as is out of the box on Predators , hitting the head, or the case, or the plastic "T" grip of 1 of 2 dipsticks.
Cutting off the "T" is out of the question if you want to use that dipstick, but if you're going to use the other one, wahll jez hoo caers?
However, boss blades hitting the engine is much more frequent of a problem if an angle grinder with a metal cutoff wheel in it scares you. You can cut away a couple of blades completely and notch out others without losing any integrity of the boss on mine. Some extra metal shouldn't prevent you from building the way you want to, slice it off of there with just a little caution added.

 

[Recon_Kart]

Thanks. I'm going to cut it off and just utilize the other dipstick. Was really hoping I could find a plug. Local hardware store did not have any M20 coarse threaded hex bolts.

 

[Recon_Kart]

If the adjustable engine plate doesn't give me enough height, would heavy duty washers be ok to use as shims between factory plate and adjustable plate to gain a little extra height? The plate I plan to order is 1/2" thick. I think that will be enough, but it may be too close yet.

 

[panchothedog]

If you need a bit more height using 4 thick washers shouldn't be a problem. Keep them sized to the bolt diameter so they don't slide around a lot. Maybe
even fender washers as they are quite a bit bigger around for the how size.
back to the oil plug problem, most plug handles are molded flat and about
1" wide ( just guessing, too lazy to go look) but all you have to do is narrow it down so it is no wider than the base of the plug, maybe a 1/4" or so from each
edge leaving enough to still grasp and turn. Harder to get super tight but at least in my experience it was enough to work.

 

[madprofessor]

I personally use stacked washers all the time in place of cutting a thin spacer. Often will vary the washers' diameter to suit the need, from smallest diameter to big fender washers. Various thicknesses too.
Not understanding about the "plug" you wanted for the dipstick hole. Or bolt. Either way, it's machine thread, equal all the way through. Only a NPT pipe thread "plug" is graduated and keeps getting tighter the further you screw it in, with threadsealer as your stopleak.
With a bolt it would screw all the way in up to the bolthead, and would have to have an O-ring or crush washer or similar as your stopleak.

 

[Recon_Kart]

I personally use stacked washers all the time in place of cutting a thin spacer. Often will vary the washers' diameter to suit the need, from smallest diameter to big fender washers. Various thicknesses too.
Not understanding about the "plug" you wanted for the dipstick hole. Or bolt. Either way, it's machine thread, equal all the way through. Only a NPT pipe thread "plug" is graduated and keeps getting tighter the further you screw it in, with threadsealer as your stopleak.
With a bolt it would screw all the way in up to the bolthead, and would have to have an O-ring or crush washer or similar as your stopleak.

I think I'm going to give up on the plug for now and just modify the oil dipstick and backing plate if I need to. Thanks for the info on the the washers.

 

[Recon_Kart]

If you need a bit more height using 4 thick washers shouldn't be a problem. Keep them sized to the bolt diameter so they don't slide around a lot. Maybe
even fender washers as they are quite a bit bigger around for the how size.
back to the oil plug problem, most plug handles are molded flat and about
1" wide ( just guessing, too lazy to go look) but all you have to do is narrow it down so it is no wider than the base of the plug, maybe a 1/4" or so from each
edge leaving enough to still grasp and turn. Harder to get super tight but at least in my experience it was enough to work.

This is the route I'm going to take for now. Thanks for the info.

 

[madprofessor]

So sorry, I really dropped the ball by just lazily floating along with the first mention of "adapter plate". Just read back to the beginning of this thread, and realized we were trying to treat the symptom instead of the cause. You said the TC's output sprocket didn't line up with the axle sprocket (that would be left/right alignment) and that the driven pulley wouldn't even clear the axle sprocket. (Bumped up into it?)
I was remiss in not pointing out that the 4 bolts that hold the TC backplate up against the motor case can hold the backplate in pretty much any direction of the compass. Attaching a pic of a TC on a minibike where the TC is angled down slightly for engine clearance issue, but still is basically pointed straight toward the drum sprocket, call it EastSouthEast on the compass, 4:00 on a clock.
Also a pic of a TC on a kart hanging straight down to the South, or 6:00 on a clock. Both TC's are bolted up with the same 4 bolts in the same 4 case holes. Some folks will mount them pointing straight forward to the West, or 9:00 clock. So maybe there's another option, alone or in conjunction with adapter.
Now the big question: If you solved the problem of TC location/direction so that the driven pulley wasn't hitting the axle sprocket..............to line up the TC output sprocket and the axle sprocket (left/right alignment) is there any reason you can't move the axle's sprocket over to get it aligned with the TC? Does it have to sit on the axle in current location?
Some pics of the setup would be the most helpful thing to have right now. Believe me, between all of us seeing, we've seen most all of it.

 

[Recon_Kart]

The sprocket hub has splines that interlock with the live axle. This seemed like the only fitting for the torque converter with out the back of the TC hitting the engine. Here are some pics.