Ok we've beat this up at my buddies race shop. I joked about putting a KZ1300 6 cyl engine in or a V-max engine or some other shaft drive bike motor. Of course I was only joking but why not, Lotus 7 reps run bike motors, there are several out now that would easily put out about 160-175HP and the car would drop about 75lbs between the motor and gearbox( sequenctial (sp) shift).......for those of us with track only cars it could fit in the passenger seat. So anyone ever seriously consider a motorcycle engined 1200???

Tom

theres a guy at oldschool.co.nz who has a Hayabusa engined toyota starlet rwd. And a bloke at www.datsun.co.nz (login required to veiw) that is fitting another Hayabusa engine to a b310 sunny rally car.
So It can be done.

if you also focused on keeping the weight down you could have a 650kg car with 180HP, A mid-engine 1200 like that could be quite fast. Pictures anyone???

Tom

yeah do it. hayabusa engine would be good or a kwaka zx-14. good thing about hayabusa would be when you get bored of 200hp there is a lot of turbo kits available making over 350hp. motorbike gearboxes are sweet as well, sequential shifting and dog engagement just feels so nice. i drove an aussie racing car the other day which runs a yamaha fj1200 and left foot braking while throttle blipping with your right foot just feels awesome, and then quickly backing off the throttle and giving the gearstick a quick tug to change up gears :D

this is a great idea.
was thinking about this after seeing an aussie racer.
they just mount the engine sideways in the front and have a diff that comes from the where the sprocket used to be.
so you wouldnt be limited to a shaft drive bike engine. the only other hurdle would be reverse.

yeah in an aussie race car there is a custom coupling mounted to the engine where the sprocket used to be and the driveshaft is solid mounted ie no yoke or anything. for reverse we use a starter motor which shoots out and attaches to the left rear brake disk which has teeth all around the outside. i've also seen gearboxes for sale somewhere that just have forward and reverse designed for motorbike engines in cars.
pepper where did you see an aussie racing cars? i'm at all the meetings doing mechanic work.

it was at a place called tourque team or something up in brisbane when i was doing a job. awesome little things.
that reverse setup would do the job, bit of a gig to setup in a 1200 but it would be different.

if your serious i can hook you up with parts, my boss owns a speedway class called modlites which run 1200cc bike motor's mounted sideways n the cars have got a dry weight of 450-500kg pretty close to a 1200. they run drive shafts with a toyota 10 bolt diff or a midget quick change, so i can get you drive shaft adaptors s&s exhaust to suit pretty much most stuff to mount it sideways it's not really that hard anyway. if you had a turbo gsxr1300 you would have way more than enough power to push a 1200. the only thing that lets the idea down is the clutch's wear out pretty quik, you only use it to take off you just plough thru the gears once you get goin pretty sweet lol anyway if you want photo's or anything just let me know

yeah the reverse system is relatively simple, can't see it being all that hard to make up, not sure what it's worth to get teeth cut into the rotor though.
lethal john, what motors do you guys run? is it an fj1200 or another motor?
pepper that's the orange and carbon pattern fj and au right? is torque team the name of a workshop?

we run mainly suzuki gsxr1000's but also honda blackbird 1100's, zx12's anything up to 1200cc, i can get adapters that fit where the cog would go that you can bolt a tailshaft straight up to it's easy as. most of the newer motor's dont run oil cooler's either they use the water to cool it so you dont have to run an oil cooler and also a standard 1200 radiator cools a bike motor just fine, i used a reconditioned 1200 radiator in one of the race cars lol. you can also get a harley motor which would be tuff but it gets a bit pricey compared to a jap motor.