Looking for off-road Kart plans - High school project.

[Hadster10]

Hey everyone,
I was just curious if anyone could help me out with my high school Engineering project, my teacher has allowed me to make an off-road kart but i need to get some plans to be able to go through with it. It can't be overly big so just a nice sized kart that'll fit an average man and won't cost heaps to get the parts but still looks good! Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[landuse]

Welcome to the forum. You are going to have to cruise around the forum a little bit having a look at build logs to get some ideas. There are no readily available FREE plans on the site that would be OK for what you are looking for. You would probably have to buy something. You can look at Spiderkarts, Edge, Badlanbuggy etc

 

[Hadster10]

Thanks for the fast reply, Landuse! Could you maybe recommend a few good plans?

 

[landuse]

You can have a look at these

http://www.diygokarts.com/vb/showthread.php?t=15522
http://www.diygokarts.com/vb/showthread.php?t=8493

You are going to be spending a large amount of money whichever plan you go for though. Even if you have the engine, all the other stuff is still going to add up

What is your max budget for this build before we go any further.....

 

[Hadster10]

Well all of the material is supplied so i just need the other parts, I don't mind how much the engine, rear axel, e.t.c. cost would be nice if i could get a good guideline on budget parts that still do the job. The arachnid looks amazing, but I've heard a lot of bad stuff about the design.

 

[Poboy kartman]

to the forum please fill out your profile so we know where you are from. This is a worldwide forum. How can we give you a budget when prices vary by location. If the materials are free- then by definition- costs are zero. What materials? How much are you going to buy and how much are you going to make? Example: you can buy a sterring wheel or make one.....

You're going to have to give us a little better idea of what you have in mind. ....

 

[Hadster10]

Sorry mate I'm from Queensland, australia and all the metal is supplied so I'll just need to buy engine, rear axel, shockies, steering wheel, seat, so basically important stuff that i can't make in the workshop!

 

[landuse]

What sort of budget do you have. We can only start recommending plans etc if we know what you can afford

 

[J_Walker]

Rear axle, probably gonna be the more expensive items being it an off road kart. I would say [not knowing the pricing for your area] $200 USD. [from my understand USD is pretty close to AUD. [$223AUD] for a new one..

now my advice is find a rolling chassis that has a good axle, steering assembly, and possibly shocks, and buy it for about the price of what you could get on a new axle. and you could retrofit the chassis with new steel and make it your own.

As with anything on four wheels. You want to get the weight of your kart as center as possible, especially with an off road kart.

 

[OzFab]

my advice is find a rolling chassis

That's not as easy as it sounds in Australia, we don't have an abundence of yerf dogs & the like over here like you guys do in the states...

Also, it's an engineering project, the whole idea is to create the frame from scratch...

Hadster, do you have an idea of what engine you want to use yet?

 

[Hadster10]

Well I found a brand new 6.5HP 4 stroke go kart engine on eBay for $140 with free postage, so I'm thinking that's pretty good, would be great if I could find a nice 40" rear axel at the wreckers, if that's even possible!

 

[fowler]

Get your self a quad and that gives u everything u need

Suspension
Electrics
Steering
Brakes
The lot

I don't know what it's like over there but in west aus eBay is useless

Start looking in the local paper
Wreakers
Gumtree

A 6.5 won't give u much go for an off road kart

It may be cheaper to find two wreaked quads so u get one that was rolled or run over or somthing do y get an engine
Then get one with a blown engine so u get the other stuff

 

[OzFab]

I don't know what it's like over there but in west aus eBay is useless

It's a lot more popular over here because... well, there's more people. IIRC, there's more people in Sydney or Brisbane or Melbourne than there is in WA

 

[Hadster10]

Hey guys, so this is a picture of a go-kart at our school that was brought in by one of the teachers, I'm thinking of just trying to replicate it (Teacher had no plans for it). I'm almost certain it's a 40 inch rear axel but i have no idea how much HP the engine has. I'm also going to extend the chassis a bit to be able to fit in it comfortably. It would be nice if someone could roughly recommend an suitable engine and maybe even some upgrades to it! Any help will be greatly appreciated!

 

[OzFab]

That appears to be a modified old race kart which is in no way suitable for off road use...

Although, it depends on your interpretation of "off road"; do you mean mostly flat dirt & grass or bush trails?

 

[Hadster10]

Well, when you put it that way, it won't be a full hardcore off-road Kart, just one that i can use on dirt/grassy surfaces that is a bit rough! What HP engine would you recommend for this kart and maybe some chassis upgrades so it'll be better.

 

[Poboy kartman]

The first thing a lot of people don't realize is how much suspension is in the tires. Think of it this way: take forklifts- those designed to run in the warehouse have solid rubber tires while those for the yard have bigger pneumatic tires.

So with knobbies that run on 5 psi- they have a lot of give- kinda like the difference between a padded seat and a park bench.......

So start with tires- then worry about suspension if you need it.....

 

[landuse]

A 6.5HP should get you around nicely

 

[Hadster10]

Thanks a lot for the help! I was actually thinking about a 6.5 HP engine

 

[mckutzy]

How involved in making parts are you wanting to be.
An axle(a piece of shaft or crs) set up in the mill for a keyway wont take that long. A sprocket/brake/wheel hub wont take that long either but longer than the axle(lathe work or cnc??). There is other parts can be made instead of buying. Buy sprockets, unless you have the setups already for this(or want a challenge), they are far much easier to buy than make.

All this is an option, if you school is providing materials.

On my build, I made the shafts(milled the keyway as I couldnt find a keyed shaft cheap at the time), made a car tire wheel hub, brake hub, then the rest of the frame ect.