Bike Engined Hatch-Back
Discussion
I have seen some bike engined cars - mainly 7 style kit cars, I was wondering if there is a bike engine suitable to make a light weight bike engined Honda Civic. Strip it out,lower it, fit 1000cc bike engine...with the sequential gears and light weight front end would it make a good track car or hill climber ? Can you uggest any potential pit falls in the idea? Would a lighter car like a Clio be more suitable ?
Bike engined smarts exists, aswell as minis, i believe. Obviously as light as possible is better as bike engines are generally lacking in the torque department compared to car engines. Bike engined mini would be fun (or fiat 500 
), but i see no point in doing it in a Honda Civic. 
Cheers,
Rob.
), but i see no point in doing it in a Honda Civic. Cheers,
Rob.
Agree that the result has to be very light weight in view of lack of torque and the potential to knacker the drivetrain. Perhaps a Suzuki Hayabusa engine might work at a stretch.
I'm going to build a twin engined, space framed, carbon fibre bodied Mini Marcos with 600bhp (when I get around to it
).
I'm going to build a twin engined, space framed, carbon fibre bodied Mini Marcos with 600bhp (when I get around to it
). I'm building an R1 engined 7 type thing and am aiming to get a finished weight of roughly 450Kg. I personally think even a mini is too heavy for a bike engine so a hatch would be much too heavy. You need two engines imo... let us know when it's finished because it sounds like a great idea.
If you want to go bananas and can weld I'd probably try and convert it to rwd and ditch the back seats and put the engine(s) there which would be superb. You could see if you can buy z cars 2 engines into one output transfer box thing and then run a custom prop to a mazda mx5 (very light apparently) diff and the mx5 rear end may be roughly the same width as your civic. I'm using a sierra rear end which is heavier but cheaper but built into a dedion rear axle which may be easier to locate in the back of your civic.
>> Edited by dern on Friday 16th December 10:34
If you want to go bananas and can weld I'd probably try and convert it to rwd and ditch the back seats and put the engine(s) there which would be superb. You could see if you can buy z cars 2 engines into one output transfer box thing and then run a custom prop to a mazda mx5 (very light apparently) diff and the mx5 rear end may be roughly the same width as your civic. I'm using a sierra rear end which is heavier but cheaper but built into a dedion rear axle which may be easier to locate in the back of your civic.
>> Edited by dern on Friday 16th December 10:34
minicity said:
Agree that the result has to be very light weight in view of lack of torque and the potential to knacker the drivetrain. Perhaps a Suzuki Hayabusa engine might work at a stretch.
I'm going to build a twin engined, space framed, carbon fibre bodied Mini Marcos with 600bhp (when I get around to it
there's already a single bike engined mini marcos being made, and who can forget mike shivlocks 2ltr, rear engined vauhall powered mini marcos. once he got it sorted it was a very quick car on the hills.
dern said:
I'm building an R1 engined 7 type thing and am aiming to get a finished weight of roughly 450Kg. I personally think even a mini is too heavy for a bike engine so a hatch would be much too heavy. You need two engines imo... let us know when it's finished because it sounds like a great idea.
>> Edited by dern on Friday 16th December 10:34
I know a few folk with this type of car - watch the weight distribution as you can get a lot of front end lift if its too light at the front. If you can get the front splitter to go under the front grille it makes a big difference. If you notice a lot of front end lift, try stiffening the rear springs - should stop the front end lifting so much under power. If its still a problem then softening the springing or the lessening the rebound in the front dampers will help.
Lightest I've seen is 347kg but I can't remember what engine was in it - lot of expensive carbon fibre though.
As for a hatch, a Hayabusa bored out to 1500cc should pull a Clio or 205 shell quite well - you can of course turbo the Hayabusa.........
tuscan_thunder said:Nice one, thanks for the tips
I know a few folk with this type of car - watch the weight distribution as you can get a lot of front end lift if its too light at the front. If you can get the front splitter to go under the front grille it makes a big difference. If you notice a lot of front end lift, try stiffening the rear springs - should stop the front end lifting so much under power. If its still a problem then softening the springing or the lessening the rebound in the front dampers will help.
dern said:
I know a few folk with this type of car - watch the weight distribution as you can get a lot of front end lift if its too light at the front. If you can get the front splitter to go under the front grille it makes a big difference. If you notice a lot of front end lift, try stiffening the rear springs - should stop the front end lifting so much under power. If its still a problem then softening the springing or the lessening the rebound in the front dampers will help.
no probs - I've got a wee bit of experience with these things so if you need any advice once its up and running, give me a shout. If you get it on the go and need any set-up tweaks I can probably help advise with that.
Hayabusa engined 205!
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/4893/20510fp.jpg
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/8095/20520xz.jpg
>> Edited by simes205 on Friday 16th December 11:39
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/4893/20510fp.jpg
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/8095/20520xz.jpg
>> Edited by simes205 on Friday 16th December 11:39
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