Motorcycle engine powered cars

posted Jul 6th 2008 9:35pm by Eliot Phillips
filed under: transportation hacks

Autoblog recently posted about the LusoMotors LM23, a track car powered by a Honda CBR1000 that weighs less than 900 pounds. We knew there have been quite a few other home built cars that have foregone traditional engines for motorcycle power plants, so we asked Google for a few project suggestions. It turned up this excellent round up of motorcycle powered cars by The Kneeslider. The usual Caterham suspects show up, but there are many other unique vehicles: from Mini and Fiat conversions to the unique sidemounted engine in the DP1 pictured above. Definitely check out this excellent collection.

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Comments [32]

tagged: car, engine, hyabusa, lightweight, motorcycle, motorcycleengine, motorcyclepowered

Reader Comments

It’s worth noting that Honda used 2 cylinder motors in a few of their earlier cars as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_N360

Funny how things come full circle, isn’t it? =)

Posted at 10:35 pm on Jul 6th, 2008 by mike

Thats nothing really. Look on youtube and you find the minibusa and smart hayabusa 1600cc!

Posted at 12:26 am on Jul 7th, 2008 by Jez

The Aussie Racing Cars series http://www.aussieracingcars.com.au/ use Yamaha motorcycle engines in their cars. This is a national series and is one of the support categories for the V8 supercars (Australian touring car) category

Posted at 12:29 am on Jul 7th, 2008 by Rob

I crew for some guys who race a ‘D’ sports racer (DSR) in the SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) that use a similar setup. The car is fast as hell. This car appears to be front wheel drive though, which is just not nearly as cool.

Posted at 1:07 am on Jul 7th, 2008 by tony

I’ve built one of these 2 years ago. In fact, close to my house was a race circuit for these vehicles :P
oh, and someone in my town have a fiat 600 with a motor from an honda motorclycle.

i dont see nothing new here, what its the matter of this post? This is not a hack, its just a mod. not the same ;)

saludos desde argentina

Posted at 1:09 am on Jul 7th, 2008 by DriX

There’s a whole class of these cars made by universities as part of the international Formula SAE design competition. Just about every school with a mechanical engineering department has one. Worth checking out, the cars range from things strung together on a non-existant budget to expensive all carbon fibre cars.

Posted at 1:12 am on Jul 7th, 2008 by Chris

“many other unique vehicles”
I guess it depends on what your frame of reference is on that one; I don’t see a [caps]BEC[/caps] (“Bike Engined Car” for those who couldn’t figure it out) as anything particularly novel any more (I own and drive one myself) as I’m part of a very large UK community where they are almost the norm. A lot of the UK kit-car industry is now based around the assumption that you use a bike engine because they work out as the best bang-for-your-buck in terms of power, weight and cost compared to a normal (car) engine. There is even a race series dedicated to them because they tend to get excluded from a lot of “normal” ones as they are too quick!

Posted at 4:30 am on Jul 7th, 2008 by Sheldon

There is a whole intercollegiate competition to design cars with motorcycle engines. http://students.sae.org/competitions/formulaseries/

I did this as my senior design project in college.

Posted at 8:02 am on Jul 7th, 2008 by mark

Motorcycle engine based cars kewl but try to find one that’s not a race car, doesn’t need a ‘donor’ to hack, etc. Who’s got plans to ‘roll your own’ from the ground up? Some folks want to build …well, more utilitarian stuff.

Posted at 1:31 pm on Jul 7th, 2008 by Steamboat Ed

I’ve long wondered if it was practical to build a dual-drive hybrid vehicle: start with, say, a Subaru Baja, and tear out the existing ICE. Set it up as a front-drive EV with some/most of the batteries on a removable skid in back, that’d take care of the 95% local trips. For the 5% of trips needing more range, pull out the battery pack, slide in a motorcycle-based ICE pack, direct-drive to the back end. Certainly this is less efficient than a pure EV, but it seems like an interesting compromise. (Heck, our Prius is less than 2000cc displacement.)

Thoughts?

Posted at 9:38 pm on Jul 7th, 2008 by MacMarty

I’d drive that around town without hesitation. Actually, what’s the gas milage on that baby? I need to know that before I make my decision. Thanks for the post.

Posted at 10:33 am on Oct 2nd, 2008 by Sue Bahroo

Thats nothing really. Look on youtube and you find the minibusa and smart mersedez-benz turbo!

Posted at 5:59 pm on Oct 5th, 2008 by alex

Wow, great links, I just got lost in there for a LONG time!

Posted at 9:28 pm on Oct 30th, 2008 by Chris

Well, amazing cars.

Posted at 2:21 am on Dec 20th, 2008 by araba oyunlari

that’s nice!looks like a model car in the movie.

Posted at 8:16 pm on Feb 1st, 2009 by hid bulb

It is always encoutaging to see vehicles like these. Competition has just got so expensive for most people. “Cheap” machines like this one at least open it up a bit more. I remember what happened to go-cart racing, it went from a real cheap sport to highly expensive one almost overnight.

Posted at 3:33 pm on Feb 8th, 2009 by Andrew Alston

Great info and keep up the good work. If you want more info about cars you should check out these Car Articles .
5 Tips on making your car more fuel efficient has some very good advice.

Posted at 10:54 pm on Feb 8th, 2009 by joe

that thing looks sweet

Posted at 4:23 pm on Feb 18th, 2009 by motorbike helmets

beautiful site..))
I will go to you.

Posted at 2:23 pm on Feb 25th, 2009 by Abstriumsters

wow, cool stuff.

Posted at 6:09 am on Mar 5th, 2009 by Motorcycle Helmets

That thing looks unfinished…

Posted at 12:25 pm on Mar 17th, 2009 by Helmets

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Title:
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Description:
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from £15 by DSA approved driving instructors in Birmingham Solihull.

Posted at 3:25 am on May 1st, 2009 by juliaseo

This is a nice type of racing car, which power engines are on it. It’s really useful for car racers. Nice work!

Posted at 9:17 am on May 13th, 2009 by Supercars

Thats nothing really. Look on youtube and you find the minibusa and smart hayabusa 1600cc!

Posted at 7:36 am on Jul 2nd, 2009 by nateconom

I am building a 1969 SAAB 95 wagonback, installing a Honda V65 Magna 1100cc engine that is 116HP stock and a BMW 318 rear LSD differential for the final drive, compared to the 64HP 1700cc stock V4 engine in the SAAB. The nice thing will be the 6 speed sequential shift transmission from the Honda. The drive train will be almost 200lbs lighter than the SAAB drivetrain.

Posted at 1:49 pm on Jul 25th, 2009 by UpstateImports

It honestly just makes a lot more sense to put a motorcycle engine in a vehicle that weighs closer to what a motorcycle would than a car.

Some of these motorcycle motors can produce close to 200hp, which is a lot in a car that weighs sub 1,000lbs. Kind of like an (even) smaller Ariel Atom.

Posted at 1:14 pm on Aug 6th, 2009 by carguy

Wow, really looking awesome! Would love to drive it

Posted at 5:05 am on Aug 15th, 2009 by Sport Bike Cam

hehe that’s pretty sweet

Posted at 7:08 pm on Sep 16th, 2009 by Sophie Brooke

Good information on cars
Thanks for sharing this information,

Posted at 12:39 pm on Oct 1st, 2009 by Trendy sports cars

So sweet, I’m sure it’s a rocket ship. One of my friends just sent me this video of a CBR900-powered go-kart in action. Built by J&D Fab. The powerslides are EPIC.

Posted at 11:49 am on Oct 4th, 2009 by student auto

Wearing black leather and riding huge Harleys, a motorcycle gang thunders through northern Georgia as if en route to a rumble. But the only rumble for this gang–the Atlanta Harley Owners Group (HOG)–is the one in their stomachs. It’s another Sunday ride in the country for the group, and as usual it ends with a feast. “We live to ride, and we ride to eat,” says club assistant director B.K. Ellis, a systems analyst.

Posted at 6:52 am on Oct 13th, 2009 by harleydavidsonaccessories

however, about constuction this pic of car, bring my imagination to how we can use tha flying car

Posted at 2:04 am on Nov 7th, 2009 by vocabulation

Motorcycle engine powered cars

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