go-cart

im planning on making a go-cart so i can practice drifting and stuff on some land my uncle's got on the eastern shore. My question is this, If i use a car engine, like a mr2 (for a mr setup) or something cheap, will I need to have the ecu? Also, if i need it, will the engine run or will i have to have it custom programmed? Also, i would like it to be manual transmission, will this pose any problems?(I'm not too familiar with how transmissions shift, i think therre are cables or something so will these mess anything up?) Thanks for any answers, I know this is an odd question but there is like one go-cart board and they probably never reply anyway...

i would stay away from car engines in a go cart. there is a lot needed for them. try a motorcycle engine with the rtranny still attached. that thing would give you plenty of drifting power. plus, how big of a cart are you planning? this sounds like it will be a mini-car instead of a go cart. hope you have access to a machine shoip and welding tools.

A car engine is way too heavy for a "go-kart".

Not to mention... too much power for something so proportionally light...

are you trying to kill yourlself?!? stick to something a little smaller like a lawn mower engine, or weedwhacker engines (i think thats what you call 'em in the USA), o if you ahd some money you could try one of those 50cc dirt bike engines that kids ride

but can it do a wheelie?

i think i am doing sort of the same thing that you are trying to do. except mine will be more of a mini car for pavement not dirt. i am going to either use a 2.0 or 1.8L, Volkswagen, Honda, or subaru flat four ( to keep the cg low ). i plan on carbureating whatever i use so it will be way less complicated. i could use any of these because tehy are all from font engine front wheel drive cars. you dont need to use an mr2 engine. you will however need to modify the steering assembly so that the back wheels don't turn. Also you probably wont be doing any wheelies without a limited slip diferential.

bassically you can use whatever engine you can get your hands on for cheap although you will need to do a little modification.

my advice: go buy a good welder.

Try to get your hands on a 250 or 500cc twostroke motocross engine, an engine like that will be a very good choice.

In superkarts a tuned version of a 250 engine like that is used, for a single cylinder engine outputs of 70-90 hp are usually used (around 50 hp in stock motocross version) which gives the kart enough power to out accelerate most cars as well giving it a top speed of over 200 km/h.

Other MC engines can also be used but remember that four strokes are much larger and heavier for their power output. An inline 4 or similar which is commonly used in japanese sport bikes could be another engine choice, but they are much larger and heavier but their power output is of course greater, but usually they will give so much power that you will have large problems with traction. One of these MC engines can also easily be turbocharged for increased power (usually it don't cost that much since most MC engines have carbs and internals that can handle the extra output), it does however not solve the traction problem.

why not just buy a yerf dog from sams club it has a belt tranny and olny does 20-35mph but i could drift like a mo fo with olny 5 hp