grabercars.com

I think I'm in luuuuuv! :blink:

Look at the post I made over at LocostBuilders and check out the photos that flowed in!

LINK TO LOCOSTBUILDERS

The plan? Two 600cc Bike engines inline .... OH YEAH! 8 cylinders... 1,200cc's... 13,000RPM?!!!.... Audio heaven with 250HP on tap... under the bodywork of la Bala!!!

Anyone have any 600cc engines for sale? cheap? hehehehe

Graber

Post edited by: admin, at: 2004/11/21 02:33
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I had read about something similar in one of my Racecar Engineering magazines. IIRC, it was a British-built open cockpit LMP-esque racer with 2 Hayabusa engines mounted side-by-side. :blink:
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Andy K
McGill Racing Team03/04/05
http://www.akrallysport.com

I disagree with the idea of using 600cc bike engines. the liter class of engines (1000cc) or higher is a much better choice. The liter engines have more HP on tap. Take the Suzuki GSXR lineup. The 1000cc has upwads of 170hp, while the 600cc has around 110. By bike standards 110 is alot, especially when pushing something that weighs sub 500lbs with rider. but get into the 1500lb territory and 2 engine pushing a combined total of 220 while definatly a good hp-lb ratio, for a minimal weight penalty (which I believe is less than 10 lbs for the suzuki and kawaski 1000-600cc engine, slighly more for honda and yamaha), and not much of a money difference, probably close to an extra $100 for each engine if used. Your better off with a liter class engine

Ok, ive never looked at ebay for engines, Ive seen them in recyclers and priced them there.

When I get my car done I am looking at (pricey) a turbo'd hyabusa engine, and maybee switch from the rotary engine to the bike engine. Or I could just upgrade to a bigger bike and leave the car alone.

I remember seeing somewhere that there is an 8 cyl bike engine out using 2 600cc cylinder jackets and heads that share a common crank and crank case. thats even more bad ass than 2 4 cyl bike engines together. I seem to vuagly remember that the crank case was welded and machined to hold the crank in place, it was done very rudamentarily, but it worked.

if you want a good engine for power i would go for a suzuki Hayabusa 1300 engine it has 183 hp but what you can do as i guy here in the uk has done was he had it bored out to 1500 cc and added a turbo to it and got 400 bhp from it and stuck it in a mini plus a company over here has made a v8 bike engine for there race car the link is this [url] http://www.radicalmotorsport.com[/url].
But if your can only afford 600 cc engines i would go for that but a suzuki Hayabusa 1300 cc engine is better for power to weight ratio.

Post edited by: dynamite25, at: 2004/11/23 01:52

Guys, I have seen that Radical v8 and it indeed RADICAL! But what a price! :blink:

The v8 twin 600cc engine that you mention was put into a one-off car built in England in the early 80's. I remeber reading an article about the car, the builder and the engine, and just about wetting my pants... What an engine! But the car wasn't that good looking IMHO. And a bear getting it off the line due to the small size of the flywheel. I don't know what gearbox was used... Still, quite admirable. They said it sounded like a swarm of very, VERY angry bees!

I have to stress that La Bala is built in the fashion of a locost. The least expensive option that doesn't compromise the goal of light weight and basic performance. Therefore I am willing to take the weight penalty of an extra 50 Kilos because the car will still come in under 1,400Lbs (700Kilos) and with 200Hp on tap it will definitely be no slouch!

Now can someone help me find out how much an R6 or ZX6r or an F4i engine weighs?

And what about twin 750cc engines? That would be a not so expensive upgrade either. The new crop of 750s are pretty light too.

Post edited by: admin, at: 2004/11/24 16:54
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A good base for the weight of the R6... We have a '96 or '97 YZF600 in our FSAe car. I think it weighed in at about 130-135 lb with no carbs or exhaust. It is also significantly heavier than a CBR600 F2-4 engine.
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Andy K
McGill Racing Team03/04/05
http://www.akrallysport.com

Hi, its my first post, but I've been following your build almost since you started, all I can say is that I'm really impressed and I've learned a lot, awesome job.

On the topic of twin bike engines, theres no disputing that they're cool, but have you looked at the idea of a 4AGZE minus the SC14 compressor in favor of a nice T3/T4 BB snail? No it won't rev to 15,000 and it won't have the same intake growl, but your car is already set up for the Toyota A series engine and you might find that 250 (reliable) HP and much better torque figures would make the car much more fun on and off the track.

I understand that you're going for lightweight, but a 4AGTE wouldn't weigh all that much.

Anyway, just my $0.02.

We use a cbr600f4i in our fase car. I will ask around and see how much it weighs...we just tore it apart last weekend, so weighing it now isn't possible. Heading to the shop today to work on our website, I'll see if anyone knows.

HiPower wrote:

Deep wrote:

Something worth considering is that bike engines are a bit different to drive. In england, several bike engine'd locosts have been wrecked because the owner wasn't ready when the little engine came on cam. They're pretty gutless down low too.

The 2 engine thing sounds like a tuning nightmare. Would you have them both on the same engine controls?

As far as I know the BEC's are more challenging to drive because of the beastlike acceleration that they have. As long as you know what you're getting into you should be ok in any kind of car. And the same goes for people driving hi-powered cars of any type. I know of several Cobra drivers that lent the keys to a 'friend' only to see the car wrapped around the lightpole at the corner. It happens...

Yes, a twin BEC will be more complex, but for some of us, that's ok because that's part of the joy of motoring. La bala is not intended to be a daily driver. I would be suprised if I get more than 3,000 miles a year in it. It is a vehicle designed to exploit the raw simplicity of motorcar driving. It weighs just under 1,150Lbs! There is no soundproofing, very little isolation, it uses racing seats with harnesses, it has no doors... It's my statement that I am sick of the feature-creep that clogs every so-called sports car. Back to basics motoring with a kick in the pants!

It all really boils donw to personal preference. Some people prefer low rev torquey powerplants with 'grunt', and some of us prefer stratospheric redlines and busy, busy, frenetic sounds emanating from behind the bulkhead. La Bala can accept an engine from a lowly Geo Metro if that's what you want, a 32V Northstar, a 4AGE in any level of trim, a single Hayabusa or even a twin engine system.

In the end, La Bala doesn't really care what engine you use as long as you personally are happy with it. Very Happy

And that makes me happy too! hehehehehe
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Alright, finaly confirmed the cbr600f4i engine weight: 110-120lbs, depending on who I asked Smile

I assume this is with exhaust manifold, water pump, oil pump and fuel rail, but w/out the massive plastic stock airbox. We have a carbon fiber intake manifold leading to a single throttle body, probably cuts down on the weight a bit.

That sounds about right. I think we picked one up two years ago and couldn't believe how light it was compared to the YZF engines.
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Andy K
McGill Racing Team03/04/05
http://www.akrallysport.com

HiPower wrote:

I have some good news for you as far as bike engines go... I went out yesterday and the day before to a bike meet from another board I frequent. I got a chance to try out a few of the bikes that we have been talking about (their engines). Here are my thoughts from riding the bike about the engine.

Honda CBR600- The bike I rode was a stunt bike with very low gearing plus a roll cage (around engine) and other essential stunt bike saving equiptment. I was thinking it had an extra, insert guesstimation, 40-50 lbs added on. It hauled arse. It had enough power I was able to pull the front wheel up in 3rd gear from idle (1k rpm) up. I think it had a lot to do with the low gearing but it did lift the front wheel without clutching it. I could pull the front wheel up in 4th easily from 4500, 5th was a bit and I needed to use the clutch.

Kawasaki 600 ninja- (I'm partial to ninjas). great bike pulled hard from full stop, It didn't give the same kick in the pants sudden acceleration that I was expecting, it eased into the upper part of it's powerband very unexpectantly, and without realizing it you were already in the "danger zone"

Suzuki GSXR 750- Ok, not a 600, but not yet a liter bike, and 2nd most powerful bike I had ridden. Other than painful wrists from a very leaned over position and a hard suspension.... The bike was like the CBR with a bit more grunt down low, but the gearing was higher (stock) so it lost some tourqe. Again a very easy bike to pull up the front wheel, 1st 2nd, and low 3rd could be done by just using the throttle the right way, The high part of 3rd and after you need to use the clutch. power on demand.

Hyabusa- I had ridden this bike before, it's very scary. this time it had a lengthened rear and was a dog in the corners, very hard to control, there is no little bit of power, almost an on/off switch, sounds the best of the bunch, It did out accelerate (felt like my stomach was on a roller coaster) all the other bikes hands down, I never left 2nd, I was too scared, and so was the owner. to sum this bike and engine up in 1 word would be easy... "drool"

derf wrote:

Remind me to tell you guys about the guy from Tucson who is gonna be building a la bala chassis with TWO hayabusas....:blink: :woohoo:

(engines are already purchased...) Evil or Very Mad

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*WARNING*
You may want to put on a bib to protect your keyboard from excessive drooling prior to viewing these web sites:

http://www.zcars.org.uk/index.htm

Or

http://www.rst-v8.com/

Or

http://www.tigerracing.com/cars/tiger-z100-main.php

I have to look through my old RaceCar Engineering; there was an article on a school running in FSAE that built their own 600cc V-8 from 250cc heads, cylinders and pistons. They machined the block from billet aluminum, along with the dry sump, roots type blower, and Trans-axle/Limited Slip differential. An amazing jewel of an engine!
By the way, the RST-V8 puts out almost 400 hp from a tiny package that weighs 190 lbs. complete with the tranny.