this is going to be insane
this is going to be insane
I don't doubt the rebuild time for races dunc :-) A friend has a KTM and it would need rebuilds every 10 hours I believe. (Or some very low figure).
It looks like a weekend car anyway.. so I doubt it will get to even 15 hours usage 'that' quickly, unless he spends full days out driving.
Subscribed !
need more photos !
3000 road miles. That is pretty damn good for a weekend driver :-) At least it seems easy to rebuild! (Although after I heard what you had to replace for a KTM engine, I'm guessing a rebuild might be a little pricey every 3000 miles?)
3000 miles on the road is absolutely nothing. How much time will it spend at anything like WOT on the road? I know that round here you dont get to use full throttle for anything but a few seconds at a time in anything remotely quick. Unless theyre talking about 4am go for a drive road miles
I expect using a bike engine in a 'heavy' 4 wheel chassis is a big factor in its limited life?
Absolutely superb build, my fave, Ill be watching with huge interest
ROFL..
Foot meets throttle... car meets hedge ;-)
I'm not really sure where the 3000 miles figure came from, but thats what Anthony told me.
Any idea how long a std engine would go for in a bike without new shells?
The fact it's going to be constantly under more load in a car and that its going to get stressed due to the turbo will shorten it's life significantly. Having said that 3000 miles will probably be a years worth of driving and changing the shells won't be very time consuming or expensive.
I can't wait to have a go in it - its going to be stupid.
Not too long, I vaugly remember something about bike engined kit cars having a short engine life, just not 3k mile short. But then they were standard engines, not 500bhp ones
As you say, its not a big deal to swap the shells out once a year. Our Skylines engine is rated to 1000 race miles and we have only done half that this year with six drift events and four track days.
This is going to be one truely aweome car. As I say, Im watching intently wiping off the drool periodically. I would suspect it will provide an insane adrenaline rush
I've watched normal caterham style car's, and they look mental as standard... this will be ridiculous fun and insane to control.
Last edited by Scougar; 19-12-2010 at 19:12.
You're right - I hadn't included all the rotating inertia, which will absorb some of the power if the car's accelerating. It's linear with power, so for comparison with the current engine I'd calculate 200 × (126 ÷ 500) = 50 mph, which will be over-estimated by about the same percentage.
Once it's finished the OP can tell us which gear it grips in.
And @Kam: you can only deliver power as force × speed, so if you're in a gear that allows the engine to deliver the full 500 bhp then the force has to be 500 bhp ÷ road speed.
Looked at another way: at 100 mph (44.6 m/s), the tractive force from 375 kW would be 8408 N. For 500 kg, that gives 16.8 m/s^2, or 1.71 G acceleration. Again, over-estimated due to rotating inertia, but still, this thing's just going to be mentally fast!
@Jez: I hope you've got a hub dyno to map it, and some big sandbags to keep the nose down!
holy mother of awesome **** I wish you were my dad!!
It's great to hear positive comments
I've had a lot of negative comments from "Experts", too much power, undrivable.... Maybe they're right... I'm still going to do it though
Jez knows the hastles I've been through working out the spec. It's been a year since I made the decision to do this and it's taken a lot of research and prep work on the rest of the car. It's been stripped back to the chassis and a lot of parts swapped out for the conversion. New Brakes, brake lines, fuel system, engine mounts, etc. The diff was 3.7. It's now an uprated 3.14 unit. Top speed should be close to 140 mph. Fast enough when you've got no windscreen and your arse is 4" off the deck.
I did just under 3k miles in the car last year and most of that was hooning it to work in the summer. I don't know how many miles I'll do with the new spec. It'll be mainly used on the road and few track days. so I'm happy with a rebuild once a year. It's only a weekend to strip and rebuild it.
There are quite a lot of comments on the web saying that bike engines don't last long in kit cars. Some people seem to have problems with them, not sure if this is due to oil starvation though. The fireblade engine I removed is 17 years old. It did 45k in a bike and 9k in the car. On the dyno it's still making more power than stock and runs really smooth. I haven't stripped it, but it seems to be going strong.
Yep. That was an awesome weekend + 240 miles of empty B Roads and roundabouts. I'd like to have this finished for Weekender 2011.
It's an MK Indy.
Yeah, should do..... The output shaft seems to be the weakest point.
Butt-Weld Fittings were from http://www.zx55.com/
I also got a good quote today from http://www.nero.co.uk/
Same bore and stroke. I could have gone oversize, but didn't want to thin the walls of a boosted NA engine.
Here's an update:
Checked the valve clearance and degreed the cams to 105in and 108ex. Cams will get tweaked on the dyno, but this should be a fair starting point.
Modified the clutch master cylinder from the bike handlebars and welded to a mounting plate. It gives the correct travel on the clutch, I'll probably have to add a bleed nipple to the top plate so that I can fill the reservoir to the top and not get air in the system.
Turbo mounting bracket.
It fits! Found a spot for the turbo, it's a bit snug. Uprated the chassis mounts, but the engine cradle is for a standard Hayabusa and doesn't look up to the job (see those end tabs ). So I'll be making a stronger cradle. There is also another engine support that will triangulate from the head of the engine. Manifold is going to be tricky... it's a bit tight in there.
Last edited by giblets; 22-12-2010 at 19:39.