Bike engined R5

[rulya5]

New poster! (less than 10 posts)

So here's the plan... I have started work on, if I'm not mistaken, the first bike engined R5 on the RTOC (I stand to be corrected)? I have the car now about 6 years and had terrible problems with the engine. More so,problems with the garage that built it. Anyway, I started stripping it when the problems started with the intention of turning it into a track car. Needless to say this never transpired and the shell remained in dry storage up until now. Very little rust is evident apart from the usual 5 problem areas; lower front window cill and jack points!

My plan is to finish stripping (not much left) and start cleaning up the necessary body panels and structure. The paint needs sanding back to the original white and the engine bay is almost stripped and ready for fabrication to begin.

I plan on using a Kawasaki ZZ-R 1200 engine which I have sourced from a local bike shop who offer a good service. We've used them in the past and they've never let us down.

Now as I refuse to drive a FWD car ever again in my life (no offence intended) I have purchased a MX5 rear subframe which is only 100-120mm wider than the standard rear track width. This sub frame is held in place with 6 M12 bolts so the actual 'fitting' is straight forward!!! A lot of work is needed to the rear structure of the shell first though.

The aforementioned axle will obviously be driven by a custom drive shaft which will bolt up to an adaptor socket on the engine where the small sprocket would usually live. I hope to over come the reverse issue by sandwiching a gear set between the diff input and drive shaft. A starter motor will engage this gear with the engine in neutral and hopefully propel the car backwards!

I hope to update this thread as must as possible with pics of the build and I would greatly appreciate any input or advice from the RTOC community. Enjoy the ride!!!

[Bigfoot]

This will be an interesting project to keep an eye on, as far as I know first on RTOC, but think there has been a few done before, some being on grasstrack but obviously not road legal and another being a race car, seem to remember seeing a video of one, wide arch kit, might have actually been in the turbo 2 shell.

Good luck with it

[c7borg]

I like the sound of this, I love rear wheel drive and have always fancied a bike engine.. I will be interested to see if there is enough torque in the engine to make it quick enough to satisfy you although a squential box and 12,000 should more than make up for any lack of torque!

Have you seen the rear bike engined 5 on you tube?

[Bigfoot]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIQ-JdCK52s

Thats it

[c7borg]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIQ-JdCK52s

Thats it

Cool.. it looks like a Scalextric car!!

[rulya5]

New poster! (less than 10 posts)

>Andrew< There's only 21lb/ft between the standard turbo and the Kawasaki and I feel with the extreme diet the little 5 has been on, should over come that. Fingers crossed though!

I've seen that Tube video. I've searched the interweb for examples and that was the only, proper video I came across.

Just finished cleaning of the front end and power washed the subframe in anticipation of some fabrication! I hope to go see the engine tomorrow and see her running. Hopefully she's fine because its such a nice balance, 160BHP 100lb/ft torque and both coming in around the 9k RPM range. Should make her drivable aswell.

I hope to get a couple of pics up tomorrow night lads/ladies. I know pics speak a thousand words!

[TrixNFlix]

[c7borg]

New poster! (less than 10 posts)

>Andrew< There's only 21lb/ft between the standard turbo and the Kawasaki

wow I didn't realise it was so close.. should be a screamer then I'll look forward to seeing this one!!

[GARY GRWTURBO]

This will be an interesting project to keep an eye on, as far as I know first on RTOC, but think there has been a few done before, some being on grasstrack but obviously not road legal and another being a race car, seem to remember seeing a video of one, wide arch kit, might have actually been in the turbo 2 shell.

Good luck with it

ive had two bike engined 5 turbo both written off
im building a twin engined 5 turbo with yes
two r1 turbo lumps at the mo
should be finished around christmas [hopefully]

my pal has just turbo'd he's r1 bike and its 472bhp

[Bigfoot]

ive had two bike engined 5 turbo both written off
im building a twin engined 5 turbo with yes
two r1 turbo lumps at the mo
should be finished around christmas [hopefully]

my pal has just turbo'd he's r1 bike and its 472bhp

You got any pics of this conversion?

[c7borg]

ive had two bike engined 5 turbo both written off
im building a twin engined 5 turbo with yes
two r1 turbo lumps at the mo
should be finished around christmas [hopefully]

my pal has just turbo'd he's r1 bike and its 472bhp

have you got any pics of your old bike engined 5's? how did they go?

[c7borg]

my pal has just turbo'd he's r1 bike and its 472bhp

And just out of interest how long does a 472hp r1 last? are they robust?

[rulya5]

New poster! (less than 10 posts)

>Gary Grwturbo< Be very interested in seeing some pics of your old 5 bike engined cars and especially of your new build? How are you syncing the engines (clutch/gearbox)? I presume they're out the back? Your pal did well in nearly tripling the R1 power especially with carbs.

Did some metal work yesterday under the front window and in the engine bay, where as a fool when I was younger, cut some of the front inner wing to make an 'air box' !!!

Went to see the engine yesterday. Pity, the bike she's coming from is lovely except for the forks and front wheel are now part of the radiator! Sound guys in the shop and we struck a deal of €820. The '02 engine only has 6,500 miles on her and the bike is mint. Plus I got a surprise when I realised she has a hydraulic clutch. Sweet. Its quite a big engine so I really hope I can squeeze her into the small confines of the 5 bay. If not....out the back with her!!!

[HAndy]

And just out of interest how long does a 472hp r1 last? are they robust?

no is the simple anwser

[rulya5]

New poster! (less than 10 posts)

Not much progress from last week. Was away for the weekend and trying to get the money together for the engine as work is tight at the moment.

Cut out most of the boot floor last night in preparation for the subframe. I hope to put this in place, have it lined up with the front and solid before connecting to the rollcage. There is one side of each of the chassis rails still left and these will be reinforced when the time comes. I will probably cross brace the remaining chassis rails (just behind where the original axle mounts) to be on the safe side.

On a related issue, anyone got any tips for removing a suborn drive shaft from a hub??? I freed up one side no problem with a few 'taps' but its counter part is putting up a much better fight. I now have the entire axle up on its edge so I can have the splines soaking in WD40. I want to remove the diff and shafts because A) there's a aluminium 'ladder' which used to connect the diff to gearbox which has bolt sleeves still holding it in place and the subframe won't allow me to remove them and B) it is a lot lighter and easier to manoeuvre!

PS: I swear I'll have some pics up over the weekend!!!

[markey b]

a friend of mine made a 900cc vw derby, awesome machine! if u need any pointers i'm sure i can put u in touch, he made a cradle to bolt the engine in, custom driveshaft and escort axle. used the bike gearbox too so sequential gears

[rulya5]

New poster! (less than 10 posts)

Finally I'm getting some pics up for you to have a look at. Still haven't managed to separate the drive shaft from the hub so I just removed the wish bones for now so I could offer the subframe up into its new home.

If I had the time and the equipment, I would make a tubular space frame to replace the subframe which could be constructed to slot in easier. Not that its going to be overly complicated to fit it anyway (fingers crossed) !!!

I'm going to fabricate two simple rails coming form the bottom of the B pillars to the rear vallance/boot deck. The forward section will be a wedge shape and welded to the floor where the old torsion bar bolted to and welded to a reinforced boot deck. The rollcage will be also pick-up from the rear points and connected to the hoop at the B pillar. The two rails will be cross braced aswell and a new floor will be constructed over them. This should provide all the strength needed to support all the forces that will be trying to dislodge it!!!

PS: Having problems uploading all the imagines I want so bare with me till I sort something better out

[rulya5]

New poster! (less than 10 posts)

Haven't had much time lately to do any work on the project which is a pain in the arse. Did a small bit of metal work on the back sub frame mounting rails. I'll get the finger out this week and get some work done to post up here.

Have added a few pics of a GTX my mate bought yesterday. It has the 'Volvo' 1.7 turbo engine in situ which will be transplanted into a GT turbo shell which is up on its side in the pics!

So I hope to have plenty to write about and my mate will probably start a thread about his project through this member name seen as he paid for it

PS: Any other website which ye guys know of to upload pics to instead of Photobucket?

[c7borg]

picasa & flickr

[rulya5]

New poster! (less than 10 posts)

Cheers Andrew.

[rulya5]

Update:

Bought the Kawasaki ZZR 1200 engine last Tuesday. Had to do a good deal of stripping to get the frame away from the engine so I took my time and labelled everything as I don't have a manual for it yet. Getting one on a CD because they don't make a 'Haynes' style one for the specific bike.


If you look at the image above, you'll see the bottom of the sump bowl which hangs about 100mm below the bottom line of the main sump which will be a pain. Also, the sprocket is quite high for a bike so I feel my propshaft will have to run down at a slight angle. These are the only two stumbling blocks I can foresee for now.

Hope to give the engine a trail fit later today and to see how I'm going to mount it. The engine has a nice dual bushed mounting point at the front on the frame so I'll cut them out a use that system. The back will probably just be solid mount for now and see how that goes.

[rulya5]

*Update*

Having been juggling work/training/lady with trying to get some work done on the Renosaki !!!

Pic1) This is the engine in place. There is alot of room to the left which I hope to fill with battery and coolant bottles, reservoirs and anything else I can think of!

Pic2) Original GTT copper core rad. It's seen very little use. Its not far off the size of the ZZR bike rad. About a 1/4 bigger which is never a bad thing. I don't think I can test the flow due to the water pump being mechanical.

Pic3) Left side engine mount mocked up and pre braced. I found some Impreza suspension bushes lying around and decided to try them out. They are very robust so should provide a good stable mount.

Pic4) Made up a bracket to mount the rad pressure cap which houses the thermostat. Decided I wanted to stamp it like the original so made up one from a recently purchased pipe bending bottle 12ton bottle jack!

Pic5) New frame I made around the jack. Only two bolts hold it in place so it's easy to relocate back into the pipe bender. It works fine so I'm going to make an embosser to press out round holes into plate for strength!

[James5]

Interesting project matey, so how do the driveshafts all fit in place??

[rulya5]

The back wheels will be driven via a diff and subframe set up from an MX5. A drive shaft will be bolted up to an adaptor plate made from the small bike sprocket. Its the same way kit cars run bike engines and is a proven method. Hope this clears it up!

[BriC]

Front engined, RWD? Mint! Look forwards to more news!

[SCHWARTZ]

balance it out with a supercharger and turbo

[rulya5]

Left side engine mount, exhaust manifold, how badly it was crushed from crash impact, ZZ-R rad fans to be mounted on Reno GTT rad, right hand side engine mount. I was able to use the original bushes in some new tube.

[Bass J]

Im liking the progress here ...will be watching this

[rulya5]

I had to cut out the 'boob' as I've seen it been called on here because the engine was just too tight to it.


Made up a panel out of 1mm sheet and stamped some ribs for strength and aesthetics!



Popped a few rivets and job done. Primed the awkward areas first just in case I couldn't reach them after...or forget!



Rear MX5 sub frame stripped and ready to be offered up to the back. Working on this now so hopefully will see some progress regards a rolling chassis in the next week or two...probably 3!! I don't want to rush this process.





Does anyone have any tips to aligning the back with the front wheels? I don't have the wheels on the front yet and am wondering is it possible to mount the back sub frame without using the front wheels as a guide or am I just being stupid and lazy? Just get the front on I can hear ye say!!! Thanks for reading...

[BriC]

Any updates?

[mattk]

Any updates with this little beasty?