It's more like going from a Ka to a rocket inserted up your backside. The fact that there are two driven wheels and more grip and no chance of a wheelie means that 1st gear acceleration is out of this world unbelievable. Add hillclimb spec (chewing gum sticky) slicks and an LSD and it's a wee bit exciting. As I have bored everyone with before, the one I was in weighs 430 something KGs ready to go.
I now have a bike engine for my Sylva, but it ain't a Busa. The places I go to with the car, I couldn't handle a Busa.
It is on the bikes too. With almost double the power to weight.
But that means half the power to weight of the vehicle the motor came from. And bike tyres are sticky anyway. The only real difference is that the acceleration continues further in each gear on a bike because it uses taller gearing (geared for around 190mph) So your first gear acceleration runs out and you are in second before the lighter taller geared bike.
Pussy! Fit it then turbo it. You CAN handle it its fun! My street bike had 270bhp plus the nitrous. Its not uncontrollable just astounding.
Interesting and fun but I did do a good few track days on said bikes too. I live only 15 miles from cadwell and it looks just like your local track including the width!
Never quite seen the appeal of bike engined cars other than the noise. Surely it's better to put a manically tuned K series in (which will also require regular rebuilds) and at least have some torque as well?
Then I suggest you build a racecar once... let say a Lotus 7 clone.
You have the options: a 1300 cc Ford with -oh goodness- 75 HP and weighing 150 kg (transmission included). It will take you for 0 to 60 MPH in about 12 seconds and top out at 160 kph.
Then you toss out the Ford-engine and you fit a Honda CBR900-engine -cheap as chips. Power doubles, 6 speed sequential gearbox and weight goes down a whopping 80 kg. 0 to 60 in about 6 seconds and it will push till 210 -220 kph.
Of course you can tune the Ford engine, it will break down often and cost you tenfold the price of the bike engine. Been there, done that.
Just to give you an idea: in a -childish- red light race the bike-engined car will be about 100 m in front of ford-powered one just 5 seconds after the light went green.
What the appeal in relation to noise is, I do not understand. When you were younger I suppose you put playing cards through the spokes of your bike so that the rattle would sound like an engine.
I did not do that: I learned to ride a bicycle, the second day I pumped the tires the hardest I could and learned to go fast. I just like to go fast and the least noice it makes the less attention it gets from the men in blue. Some things do not change :-)
No kidding - something to do with the doubling of the power from the stated
75bhp to the assumed 150. Of course you can put a 160bhp K series in and have torque, power and (if you sort the cooling out right) longevity and reliability.
Not without a LOT of tuning and serious expence. And once tuned to that level it has less reliability than the better engineered production racing engine from the bike. And its heavier. MUCH heavier, now with mismatched gear ratios since you have changed the engines power characteristics drastically. In short your gears are now too far apart and change slower than the bike due to the lack of sequential non synchro box.
and
If you have more torque but at lower revs then you gain nothing because your gear ratios need to be taller to achieve the same roadspeed. So its not relevant. Unless you mean the SHAPE of the torque curve? In which case the one off tuned car engine will undoubtedly be worse than the carefully engineered production mortor from the bike.
Same AFTER tuning!
and (if you sort the cooling out right) longevity and
You must be joking. Tuned car engines last about a week. They are cheap, badly designed lumps of metal with a few holes drilled in. Bike engines are production racing engines designed to be bounced off the rev limiter at
12000 rpm all day long. And the gearbox was also designed for the power unlike the one from the car.
The extra weight of that engine will heavily penalise handling and braking: 50 kg on a total of 500 kg is a lot.
Not to mention that that engine will cost a lot more and will come with heavy auxiliaries (alternator, battery, extensive wiring), big airbox etc whereas the bike engine it designed to be nimble and compact.
Longevity is no issue: a kitcar rarely is driven more than 5000 km a year. Then try to get your 160 hp-engine to 220 HP... on a bike engine that means putting a Hayabuse-engine in (cost of 2000 UKP).
I have had an BX16V (with the Pug MI16 engine) tuned from standard 160 HP crank to 210 HP crank. IIRC parts alone (headwork, valves, cams, pistons and ECU) were around 3000 UKP. Luckily I had the PTS gearbox (with LSD) for free because with the standard box the car had to be rolled through corners because if power was applied you couldn't predict where it would go.
Leaves the gearbox: on our crosscart (bike engined, 320 kg all fluids but no pilot, 124 HP@ 15000 RPM) we have the R6-engine. With adequate tires 0->100 kph is there in 3.9 seconds in a distance of about 100m. During that time we shift to 5-th gear. Try the same with a conventional gearbox.
That crosscart drives faster around rallye-cross circuits than 500 HP cars.
It is? Then reliability should be equal. Other than the car engine and box is heavier so the vehicle will be slower.
Then once you have increased the gearing to give the same >road speed< as the suzuki engine the available torque >at the wheels< will be exactly the same @ 160bhp rpm. Maths says so. Or at least it would if the cars transmission was as efficient as the bikes is. But its not. So the car option is still a lot heavier and slower.
People dont get it untill they try it. Power to weight, gearchange speed is what counts. Bike engines totally rule here.
Busas go 0 to 100 5 secs. Most cars gearboxes take that long to change gear 3 or 4 times! My street bike (turbo/nitrous 11) did 160 in 8.something secs. It was still flexible and easy to ride in town.
Can I just say amen to all of the above half dozen or so posts.
I know 'two' drivers in the category of hillclimbing I am interested in who can be successful with a car engine. One has the ultimate spec SBD vauxhall. 1660cc in his case and about 250 bhp - the mutts nuts in terms of vauxhall tuning.
How much ? Who knows, several grand 5-6-7 maybe ?
The other guy has, yet again, the ultimate Cosworth BDG - even rarer, even higher strung, even more expensive.
None of the two of these has a sequential gearbox...
Everyone else just bolts in a Busa/ZX9/blade/gsxr and that's it. They're all competitive, and nobody ever lifts the bonnet off the car to work on the engine in the paddock, because they never go wrong.
They all have ultra close ratio sequential gearboxes, some of them with full F1 style flat shift as well.
You can't buy that kind of technology at our level - not with a car engine.
Maybe it's for the best that I can't find the price list!
-- Peter Hill Spamtrap reply domain as per NNTP-Posting-Host in header Can of worms - what every fisherman wants. Can of worms - what every PC owner gets!
Hmm, was a Blackbird anyway, I gets confused with bikes. I wasn't even an officionado when I was a biker :)
I've not been "got at", in fact, I'm getting really pissed off with the whole attitude on there lately. Doesn't anyone "make" anything anymore ? Most threads are pointing out where to buy stuff, very little fabricating going on.
My engine was bought for £20 on ebay, it was actually £20 for the head, he threw the seized block[1] in for nowt. My spare was £50 and was collected in a few cardboard boxes, a bit rich for me but there was plenty of spares and it seems to have been a more or less full race engine in it's past :)
Next job is fitting a t9 'box, sick of only 4 gears. Although it's gonna be a bit more complicated than that as the engine will sit a few inches further forward, gonna need to change the exhaust, bonnet, gearchange etc... oh yeah, the 'box cost me £20, you're not the only builder who likes to budget ;)
[1] No.4 big end was totally seized, the seller was absolutely sure that it had been running fine when he took it out and that it must have seized from none-use, so attacked the flywheel with a sledgehammer or summat to try free it off, by the time he'd finished it looked absolutely knackered and unsellable, even on ebay. Hence, a free short block for me :)
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