Help me go 50mph

[redsox985]

Again, a bike engine. It will bolt in and have much more power and torque as well as a gear box. It's also higher quality and can be redlined at say 8000+ rpm.

 

[Blazkowiez]

Again, a bike engine. It will bolt in and have much more power and torque as well as a gear box. It's also higher quality and can be redlined at say 8000+ rpm.

It'll bolt into what? I agree that you will have a much better potential speed, a cheaper project, more reliable top speed with less danger of engine failure if driven correctly.

The concern from that point is building a hardness and modifying the go-kart. I've never seen a bike engine gently "bolt-in" to the spot where an industrial purpose 4 stroke went.

 

[redsox985]

Sorry. You're right. I was thinking back to when I had my xr100 motor and was building my kart. I've never had/worked on a mass produced kart. My situation was just weld on 2 brackets.

 

[modelengineer]

Most people who are worried about the difficulty installing a bike engine have never done it. It's VERY simple. The wiring harness from the bike should transplant easily straight into the kart. You might have to lengthen a few wires but that's not difficult.

If you have a welder, an angle grinder and a drill there's nothing stopping you from going bike engine.

If you want to go 50mph with good acceleration (by good I mean 0-60 < 7 seconds) then I think a bike engine is the only practical way.

 

[Routy]

snowmobile engines i prefer cuss they have amazing torque and gettin up to speed is never a prob with them and you dont have to worry about a tranny or gears.

 

[redsox985]

Good point. They're a bit larger. If you go with a quad or dirtbike motor there's no wiring unless you run e start or lights. Just a kicker and throttle and clutch. Or get a semi auto and lose the clutch. Snowmobiles would have lots of torque and the cvt is nice.

 

[r97]

like said if your not too familiar with engines i would not suggest modding. that prob puts you down the bike road. check local news papers and salvage yards for crashed motorcycles, you'l get an engine (only do this if you can fix an engine, as it may need repairs, i suppose you can have some one repair if you really want, may be costly). next replace the steering parts and make that all stronger, setup proper steering geometry. next make a sturdy mount for you engine, shouldn't be tough as model engineer said. also make sure that you support the frame more, it wasn't made to go 60. finally replace all bearings with high quality ones, and maybe get new wheels that can be balanced. i leave anything major out?

 

[modelengineer]

As a plus, if you buy a crashed motorbike you know it was running when it crashed so there's a good chance it's still good.

 

[Routy]

true and it will be cheap cuss its crashed and you might even be able to salvage some parts from it like brakes or shocks