go kart with Formula One sounding engine

[2insane]

I'm designing a go kart that is supposed to sound like a Formula One car. By using enough small engines geared together to fire sequentially, the frequency of the explosions could match or exceed that of an F1 car.

F1 gets max about 72,000 explosions per minute from an 8 cyl. four-stroke running at 18k rpm.

Some rc nitro engines claim 35K rpm and 2.5 hp. A couple of these geared to fire alternately would produce 70k explosions per minute without a load, but I doubt that only two of them could reach the 35k under the load of a go kart. Maybe three together could make the right sound running at 24k each, while providing 7.5 hp.

I would have the engines geared to one large gear so as to keep them firing in sequence. I would leave open some positions around the large gear, so I could add more engines as required, if the top speed, the acceleration, or the sound frequency were not high enough to satisfy my insanity.

The output of the large gear would go to a clutch and 6-speed motorcycle transmission before a direct drive to a live axle.

Would I need a muffler or earplugs?

Your comments?

 

[Kaptain Krunch]

Nitro RC car engines will not only be expensive to buy and run, but wont do so well on a go kart. Those things are TINY, theres no way your going to get a clutch on there, and with that much strain you may end up just breaking the crankshaft. The stock clutches on there wont hold up, some of them even have plastic shoes.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

 

[frederic]

The only way you could address Kaptain's valid concern is to put a little gear on each engine that rides on a common larger gear, and your clutch attaches to that larger gear. The little engines would mount whatever holds the beraing for the larger gear, and placed around the perimeter of the bigger gear.

You could control the timing of the explosions in each engine this way, by rotating each engine "one tooth" off of each other as you mount them around the larger gear.

I see you spending tons of money and having lots of mechanical breakage as well, but if I was to embark on this myself, that's what I'd do.

Or, I'd visit a junkyard and find a fart pipe and weld up an exhaust on a medium sized briggs or tecumsah or whatever utility/mower engine you would normally use.

 

[skid20]

your building something that is already made.
It's called a radial engine. Just go to the nearest aircraft boneyard and find ya one! lol!

seriously it sounds like a neat idea but thats a hole lot of work just for some sound. It would probably just end up sounding like a bunch of lumberjacks running chainsaws all at the same time.

....But hey, all you can do is try!

 

[mike75925]

they have 1/4 scale v8's and v12's, that are r/c nitro engines

 

[Rotore]

or get a r26b ( 4 rotor) engine and not only over power the sound of a formula 1 v8 but also be faster. thats why the engine got banned from lemans