New Guy From New Mexico

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Buchenrad

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Hello all you folks out there,

My name is Derek and Im a Mechanical Engineering student in New Mexico. Im not necessarily joining because I want to build a go kart (though one day I may get involved, the budget wont allow such at the moment) Instead, here is the story that brings me here:

A while back I bought this 3.5hp 4 Stroke engine off of an edger (and a clutch, chain and other goodies) in order to put it on my bicycle. I was too stubborn to admit that it was too heavy because I wanted the torquesss (I was going to build a trailer for it afterward), but I have come to terms with that now. So now I have a 3.5hp engine without a project and that is just a tragedy in my book. I was brainstorming with my friends (translation: making ridiculous propositions of creations that should never happen) and I had the bright idea to motorize a couch. That developed into using a couch as a centerpiece for a sort of hot rod styled wooden frame motorized cart which now has me wondering if I dont have enough engine for what I want to do.

Anyway I have questions about engines and gearing and drivetrains and suspensions so that is why Im here. I imagine at some point I could start a build thread if yall are interested but right now Im still in the design phase. I attached my sketch of what Im going for.

And sorry for the long winded introduction.
 

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OzFab

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Why does everyone consider a long intro to be a bad thing? The more you say, the more we know about you or what you're doing, which is a good thing...

Unless you're planning on only moving 5-10mph, that little 3.5hp engine won't do much for you, it's all about the power:weight ratio...

Welcome to the forum
 

Buchenrad

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Thanks for the welcome.

The underpoweredness of my engine (or the excessiveness of my project) might be a delay to getting it done, but its still something Im going to try to do.
 

landuse

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Welcome to the forum. I agree with Fabroman that the 3.5hp is too underpowered for your needs. There have been one or two couch builds on the forum. I will see if i can dig them up for you

Here is one i have found. This is a PRIME example of why we don't want people to use pic hosting sites for their images, and using links to them in posts. You will see in this thread that the pics have now been moved out of that hosting site and some of them are now no longer available. This is why we ask people to rather upload pics than link to their photobucket etc.

http://www.diygokarts.com/vb/showthread.php?t=17106&highlight=couch
 
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