Long story short - Several weeks ago I met up with a guy named Bill Kibler who owns a CNC machine shop and designs parts for off-road race trucks/buggies and also does composites work. His shop is just minutes from my house. He called me after seeing my grabercars license plate cover on my wife's mini-van while sitting at a stoplight. We have a lot of interests in common. You might find this intersting; Bill is designing/building a V8 engine completely from scratch in his machine shop. Ultra lightweight and high output, I see similarities to the bike-head engines being built in the UK. Some of you may recall a University of Washington FSAE team that built their own engine/gearbox some years back. http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/viking30.htm The student that designed that engine works for Bill. But I digress.

We decided that it would be a win-win for both of us if we moved the car over to his shop to finish the plug and pull the molds. The goal is to finish the prototype car and drive the wheels off it and have some fun doing it and if it can be turned into a business then we already have the facilities and the expertise to build and market it. Cool eh?

Here's a pic of Jim Williams and I preparing to tow the plug to Bills Shop.


Here's a pic of Bill and Jim unloading the car from the trailer at the new shop.


This is gonna be big!

Graber

I have even more good news, but can't write anymore about it until later.

Sweet

The Lotus 11 in your avatar ^ is beautiful.

Funny how tastes vary.....personally I don't think it's all that beautiful at all IMO.....

Mind you there will be plenty who don't like my effort either.....

Good news on the developments Steve...

Steve

Followed the link to the V8 engined student single seater

I think they are winding you up, it's actually a fizzy drink dispenser

Fizzy Drinks! That's funny!

Here's a video of that engine on the dyno

http://dot.etec.wwu.edu/fsae/videos/vik30dyno.mpg

quote:

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Originally posted by Alan B
Mind you there will be plenty who don't like my effort either.....

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Well....out with it....is this guy giving you a little V8 to test out in the bullet or what?

^ - There is apparently enough room in the engine bay.... The little V8 is not finished mind you. Probably a few years away. But the CVT transmission he designed and built is.

so... any info on the v8? Target weigth/hp? Is it based on motorcycle heads? I assume there is no project website.

Thanks!

Wow, that little engine is sweet! Though I don't think it would be of much use for most kitcars though. It's only a 554cc engine, and I doubt it will produce any usable amounts of torque for something as "heavy" as a locost or similar kit...

that little 548cc v8 you see in the photos was used in a University of Western Washington FSAE Student car 2 years ago. The bespoke v8 that Bill is currently working on will be 2.0 liters. I can't post any photos cause there's nothing to see yet.

holy smoke !

The trouble with engines like this is they aren't going to be cheap. By the time it's all said and done, there are other cost alternatives like a turbo Hayabusa.

The tiny V8 will require some serious R&D effort. A big concern is long term oiling and cooling issues. Presumably it'll use two sportbike heads, but the block will be custom-made. Keeping the crank happy isn't easy. On the others that have been made, I've seen claims amounting to saying that if the Hayabusa can go to 13Krpm, then a V8 based on it will go just as fast. I don't think so because it has twice the recipricating mass...

That engine was built at Western Washington University, not University of Washington. Thing of beauty though and hell of nice guys. Cheers!