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Crazy Twin Engine idea.... Thoughts
tunsoffun - 4/3/06 at 10:06 PM

I've just come up with a crazy idea to make, for pure 1/4 mile racing, a twin bike engined rear drive car.

Each engine to drive a seperate wheel.

Suspension would be easier, as you could use bike style swing arms with flat car tires.

The only real problem I can see is getting the engine to rev the same, as every engine is slightly different.

What you think, Easy or just crazy and should be left well alone?

nitram38 - 4/3/06 at 10:12 PM

Try here:

http://furorecars.co.uk/

tunsoffun - 4/3/06 at 10:32 PM

Beat to it.

At least I'm not the only crazy one about(?)

I was thinking of using the TL1000 Vtwin though (or any other V's), as it would save a bit more space and overcome the long/short drive shafts problem.

Also the swing are style suspension wouth overcome the sprocket problem he has.

stevebubs - 4/3/06 at 10:32 PM

quote:
Originally posted by tunsoffun

The only real problem I can see is getting the engine to rev the same, as every engine is slightly different.

What you think, Easy or just crazy and should be left well alone?


Blooming difficult!!! Only need to be partially out and you're in the wall...

joolsmi16 - 4/3/06 at 10:44 PM

Can I ask why people go the twin engine route and not the single turbo charged engine?

iank - 4/3/06 at 11:03 PM

quote:
Originally posted by joolsmi16
Can I ask why people go the twin engine route and not the single turbo charged engine?


Race regs maybe, and of course if allowed there's no reason not to put turbos on the twin setup

Though I agree the cost-benefit doesn't seem to work for anything that runs on the road.

The one engine per wheel idea (i.e. not using a combining box) sounds likely to kill someone though, only takes one engine to hiccough and you turn right or left really quickly! Even if you can keep them exactly in sync through cunning and expensive EFI.

Fatgadget - 4/3/06 at 11:12 PM

quote:

Blooming difficult!!! Only need to be partially out and you're in the wall...


Shouldn't be too difficult to keep the 2 engines in equilibrium using sensors linked to a microcontroller. Could also link the steering input to the controller for a very interesting car!


quote:

Can I ask why people go the twin engine route and not the single turbo charged engine?


One could also ask why climb Ben Nevis instead of going for a leisurely stroll in the local park?

froggy - 4/3/06 at 11:21 PM

wheres ns dev when you need him? keep looking its been done plenty of times before ,z cars twin r1 mini and loads of grasstrack cars

MikeR - 4/3/06 at 11:36 PM

aaah, but the grassers have the read axle as a solid bar so you don't have this problem.

Who needs NS Dev?

NS Dev - 5/3/06 at 12:20 AM

quote:
Originally posted by tunsoffun
Beat to it.

At least I'm not the only crazy one about(?)

I was thinking of using the TL1000 Vtwin though (or any other V's), as it would save a bit more space and overcome the long/short drive shafts problem.

Also the swing are style suspension wouth overcome the sprocket problem he has.



HERE I AM!!


I will be building a twin TL1000 powered RWD mini for grasstrack racing later this year once my 7 is finished.

Any ideas on sources for engines?

Re. keeping the engines in synch, what the hell is all this electronics talk!!!???

Just drive a common shaft with their gearbox outputs, and link the gearshifts, can't get much simpler than that!

As was said, most grassers don't run a diff so even easier, but if you want to run a diff, just chain drive a countershaft from both engines, then chain drive a diff from that.

I may be using a countershaft even with no diff, so i can mount the engines far back and drive from a countershaft behind them to a driveshaft flanged shaft in front to take the drive to the wheels.

NS Dev - 5/3/06 at 12:22 AM

PS reason the grassers don't run turbos is they are not allowed under the regs on bike engines, nat asp. only.

They still run twin 1600cc hayabusas tho with 245hp each, which still give nearly 1000 hp/tonne.

MikeR - 5/3/06 at 09:10 AM

quote:
Originally posted by NS Dev

HERE I AM!!


I will be building a twin TL1000 powered RWD mini for grasstrack racing later this year once my 7 is finished.



Changed your mind again eh - should have realised you'd end up going this way after listening to you rave about the sound of the vtwins at Stratford.

jimmyjoebob - 5/3/06 at 11:53 AM

Wolfrace sonic did this in the early eighties - used two rover v8s with automatic gearboxes driving separate diffs. This had 100 inputs and outputs to 'computer control' engines at same revs etc.

As said by people in earlier comments, why not use a more powerful single engine or link engines so that only one transmission and diff is required?

kb58 - 6/3/06 at 02:55 PM

Cost.

A custom transmission to link two bike engines together would cost a mint.

"Just use a more powerful engine"? A stock Hayabusa has 175hp or so. Another $5k-$10k gets you upwards of 250hp. To go higher then that would require highly custom F1-type work, and we all know that's cheap...

Seeing that the Hayabusa-based V8 is ~$27,000 (with no tranny!) makes using two of them look quite attractive.

Chris Clarke - 7/3/06 at 03:27 AM

quote:

why not use a more powerful single engine


The way I see it, with two bike engines, you can double the power (not quite) and keep them relatively stock, which means a lot less stress on the components. If you try and double the power through one engine, you are going to have to beef up everything, which means less reliability and more $.

[Edited on 7/3/06 by Chris Clarke]

russbost - 13/3/06 at 11:17 PM

Having done it, I can tell you all the pitfalls, matching the engine outputs is NOT one of them - I have driven my car on one engine, driving one rear wheel & except under full power it barely deviates from the straight & narrow, to put it in the wall you'd have to be asleep. My biggest problem was getting the clutches to bite smoothly together (now solved). It's the cheapest route to big, high revving power, but if you've got a bit more dough to spare go the one big output engine route. Turboing does make it very pricey tho'. I have around 274 Bhp for about £1200 beat that in bangs per buck!

kb58 - 14/3/06 at 02:34 AM

quote:
I have around 274 Bhp for about £1200 beat that in bangs per buck!


Exactly... hard to beat money-wise.

[Edited on 3/14/06 by kb58]