Bike engined cars

[old No 1]

So... was having a think while having a beer last night and when my company car comes I'm thinking of selling my 'practicle ' 996 and getting something silly as a pure toy and always fancied a Caterham or similar. So i started thinking of the latest sports bikes and the fact they almost all have TC anti wheelie and launch crontrol etc and wondered if anyone has transferred any of this tech to a 7 type car and how easy it would be (i guess the anti wheelie would not work )

[WeirdNeville]

I think that Traction Control tends to be dealt with by the power delivery of a bike engine combined with the use of a bike clutch rather than a car one on most (all?) BEC's?
That and you oculd just fit racelogic traction control for about £500 if it was an issue. I don't think it tends to be, 2 fat car tyres vs one round profil bike tyre tends to take care of the traction issue, that and another 200-300Kg vehicle weight over a bike.

[DanGPR]

The issue is slightly different between bikes and cars, in that the traction control isn't usually needed on a bike to stop the wheel spinning, it's more to stop the bike from lofting the front wheel (apart from in the wet).

Also, isn't the point of a 7 to go back to basics, raw driving, not have electronic driver aids aiding you?

[XitUp]

Could you shorten the wheelbase of a 7 and lighten the front end enough to make it do wheelies?

If so, do it.

[AndySpecD]

XitUp said:

Could you shorten the wheelbase of a 7 and lighten the front end enough to make it do wheelies?

If so, do it.

Sort of the opposite of that, but thought you might like this vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uGfstsi2Ts&fea...

[manic47]

AndySpecD said:

Sort of the opposite of that, but thought you might like this vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uGfstsi2Ts&fea...

That's a good type of lunacy.

[AndySpecD]

manic47 said:

That's a good type of lunacy.

There's a fine line between genius and insanity

Oscar Levant
(1906 - 1972)

[Noger]

No. Mostly we take off all this sort of tech (and then have to fool the ECU into thinking it is still there) as it isn't needed. Also binned are the emissions and noise things.

Suzuki's Timing Retard in lower gears goes. The various exhaust butterflies and 2ndary throttles too.

If a 400bhp/tonne Caterham doesn't need traction control with K-series or Ford power, it doesn't need it with bike power either.

[old No 1]

DanGPR said:

The issue is slightly different between bikes and cars, in that the traction control isn't usually needed on a bike to stop the wheel spinning, it's more to stop the bike from lofting the front wheel (apart from in the wet).

Also, isn't the point of a 7 to go back to basics, raw driving, not have electronic driver aids aiding you?

No its to stop it spinning ...the anti wheelie stops the front lifting

Look up the Aprilia ARPC system, its a 8 stage traction control system and includes anti Wheeli and and launch control also a quickshifter function

And maybe I want to go as quick as possible and fancy something high tec?? sure I can have a K-series but I want R500 style for cheaper !

[vit4]

What's all this nonsense being spouted about a '7'?!


You need one of these :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ3hvAzjGQ4

[BadgerBill]

You need pants tyres and a blatant lack of mechanical sympathy to get any sort of sustained wheel spin in a bec. Also, all that electrical assistance would not only be a royal pita to sort out, but would be pretty much redundant.

BB.

[Busa_Rush]

old No 1 said:

So... was having a think while having a beer last night and when my company car comes I'm thinking of selling my 'practicle ' 996 and getting something silly as a pure toy and always fancied a Caterham or similar. So i started thinking of the latest sports bikes and the fact they almost all have TC anti wheelie and launch crontrol etc and wondered if anyone has transferred any of this tech to a 7 type car and how easy it would be (i guess the anti wheelie would not work )

The latest BMW and ZX10 engines with traction control haven't yet found their way into many kit cars but the calibration of the traction control is quite likely to not work very well in a car.

SBD have developed brilliant launch and traction control in the MBE ecu for the Hayabusa.

[Busa_Rush]

BadgerBill said:

You need pants tyres and a blatant lack of mechanical sympathy to get any sort of sustained wheel spin in a bec.

What makes you think that ?

[BadgerBill]

Erm, 18k miles in a BEC on good tyres...

BB

[Rawwr]

old No 1 said:

the fact they almost all have TC anti wheelie and launch crontrol etc

Erm, do they?

[MarJay]

Rawwr said:

Erm, do they?

Two that I can think of... That isn't almost all... Plus who the *freaking* *heck* is going to dismantle a 2011 BMW S1000RR or Kawasaki ZX10R to put in a kit car? Nobody... unless they like lighting their cuban cigars with £50 notes.

You're going to buy an engine from a three year old bike that has been crashed by some Born Again and written off. You're not going to use a new machine as a donor are you?

[300bhp/ton]

Slightly off topic.

But I'm curious, what's the durability and maintenance like on BEC powered cars? Not just 7's but maybe somelike Z-Cars Mini or Smartuki's smart ForTwo's. Do they eat through clutches and need servicing all the while, or are they comparable to running a tuned 4 cylinder car engine?

Was also wondering about mpg. I know these aren't 'economy' cars but again are they comparable on fuel to car engine variants or are they more like old school V8 power fuel consumption?

[Noger]

old No 1 said:

No its to stop it spinning ...the anti wheelie stops the front lifting

Look up the Aprilia ARPC system, its a 8 stage traction control system and includes anti Wheeli and and launch control also a quickshifter function

And maybe I want to go as quick as possible and fancy something high tec?? sure I can have a K-series but I want R500 style for cheaper !

Yes, but unless you try very very hard, you can't high-side a car either

At the 1 litre sportsbike end of the BEC market, you are going to be working hard to get more that 400bhp/tonne, so the need for TC is debatable. Busas and forced induction are clearly a different matter.

They are not particularly "torquey" either (not to be confused wit lacking torque) so are pretty docile as BB says. You would need to be fairly heavy handed (footed) to provoke much spinning.

You don't need the anti-wheelie (but would probably have to work out where the sensor was and disable, so you don't have it tripping when you don't want).

Whilst it would be an interesting exercise, I think you would spend a lot of time, money or energy in getting the TC to work on two wheels rather than one. And then getting it to do it in a "car friendly" way. And I am not convinced you need it anyway.

Same with the other tech stuff on the Aprilla. Drive by wire throttle would be interesting to replicate. The "problem" with modern bike ECUs over say a early 2000s EFI and certainly over carbed engines is that (at the risk of sounding mechanopomorphic) they are fairly aware of their surroundings. A 10 year old EFI bike engine is fairly easy to fool, but it still has a fairly decent go at trying to waggle it's fingers and toes (exhaust valve actuators and throttle actuators) before telling you it is clearly on it's side and the rest of it's body is missing and giving you a cryptic message on the clocks.

My guess would be that this engine would be even more interested in how it's various sensors were working, and therefore far more likely to spend a good deal of it's time telling you that something is wrong.

[BadgerBill]

300bhp/ton said:

Slightly off topic.

But I'm curious, what's the durability and maintenance like on BEC powered cars? Not just 7's but maybe somelike Z-Cars Mini or Smartuki's smart ForTwo's. Do they eat through clutches and need servicing all the while, or are they comparable to running a tuned 4 cylinder car engine?

Was also wondering about mpg. I know these aren't 'economy' cars but again are they comparable on fuel to car engine variants or are they more like old school V8 power fuel consumption?

Depends on the install. My 420kg Striker was fine with the 900cc carb 'blade engine. Came in at over 300bhp/ton, wasn't aware that I was ever holding up traffic, and returned an average of ~34mpg.

I didn't do grid starts everytime and you simply could not drive it at 10/10ths under most conditions. Then factor in a bit of m-way work to get from a to b.

Clutches, well mine lasted the time I had it and well into the season for the chap I sold it to in whatever sprint/hillclimb/trackday series he was doing...

I tended to give mine an oil and filter service every 3k or 3 months, whichever came first, with a bit of ad-hoc attention to general condition of plugs, etc. The only thing that threw me a bill was the £90 fuel pump that failed due to vibration fatigue following a 1200 mile trip to France.

There was that one time when I managed to miss-place most the front end following a slight unanticipated excursion through a crash barrier... Although that would have happened whether or not the engine came from a bike.

BB

[Busa_Rush]

BadgerBill said:

Erm, 18k miles in a BEC on good tyres...

BB

I see from your post further down you're not driving a Hayabusa powered car . . . and maybe not on wet or cold roads . . . so you may not need tc but others might find it useful