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No Gears?...That motor may get very strained unless it is very fit for torque. I can just smell that motor burning now

I dont think skateboard wheels would work very well either for steering. even at 12 mph, if you turn too quickly, your gone and rolling

I don't advocate of the use of a short track upfront and a wide track in the rear. I've been aboard many 3 wheel atv's and have seen how easy it is to roll them. hehe. Proportioning the vehicle may help with keeping its center of gravity more reliable while turning in my opinion. I don't care if it goes 12 mph or 100 it just makes more sense. 8)

Cheers! Xxplosive42o

Yeah I agree with FordGTman. Starter motors are usually geared way down via the flywheel to turn over a car engine.

You could look into some standard gokart parts, gears, axles, chain drives. Also I think the lawnmower battery isn't going to last very long. A good deep cycle marine battery would perform much better for this application.

I have a old go cart that needs work, the engine needs to be cleaned up but otherwise works, needs a new back axle and some new wheels.
I could sell it to you for 60$, for the most part it is just taking up space.

BTW, An electric go-kart is going to take ALOT more than 12 volts and a starter motor. The max wattage you can get with 12 volts is about a 300-400 watt motor. even for a bycicle, This isnt go-kart speed. You need more of 2000-3000 watts for a Go-kart.

Also, Lawn Motor batteries are NOT DEEP CYCLE! they will give you power for about 15 minutes and then DIE straight out, Never to be recharged fully again. Youd need something like a 12 volt, 12 AH Gell cell or Sealed Lead-Acid battery

If i were you, Id look into electric motorcycle kits. Expensive, but it will get the job done like you want (i imagine you want your go-kart to travel at about 20-30 MPH.......)

If you want to know the wattage needed to pull your kart up a certain incline, PM me, And i can give you a thing Ragnrok sent me that will help you calculate it.

ALSO, you NEED GEARING!!!!! I can help you with this too, If, that is, You have the tourqe vs. RPM curves of your Motor.

A simple mechanical plan for a project like this will not yeild results that will make you happy. Do some serious planning, And be ready to spend some serious cold hard cash.

Why not get a combustion motor and then fix it to a board with four BIG wheels...An old lawn mower will do and even ply woad is great. lie down on it and of you go. Of coarse you can always mod it to be alot cooler, attach a seat, make it metal ect ect. but the basic principles are always the same. Oh and it pretty simple, i made my last one with about 10 so its really simple and fun(any you can mount a spud gun onto it!)

Go get a push mower and take off the blade. Poof! you got yourself a gokart engine. I spent the summer of 06 making a gokart. All we used was a pushmower engine and the wheels off of it.

if you want to make a 3 wheeled go cart, make the front hve the two wheels, that are powered, and the reat steer. I know this sounds odd but it will improve ballance and monuverbility.

I concur (zomg, smart word!).^

I just used a bike chain and a some gear off an old bike and pochow! had a pretty cool ten second cart. The frame was just a bunch of 2x4's and sheet metal. The engine reaked of burning rubber, it left of trail of oil, but it was sweet and went almost thirteen miles an hour. You had to sit near the front or it would flip over though, lol.

Ok, so i see i need to do some more planning. and vh man, i was on youtube, and almost all of the electric go karts(homemade) use a starter motor. And frank, sorry, cant use a gas engine, thats why i want it electric.

well you should do a lot more research and once you do you will soon see that it is a huge waste of your time all the wait balancing from your battery cells your motors assuming that its one per wheel or else there is another challenge getting a 5 horse electric. as for your screwed up frame design try this mxk.com

if u want any significant power i suggest you learn how to crack out the welder because that 2x4 will snap like a twig on your first turn. if you do wish to stick to that design can you tell me were your funeral is goona be?

i made somthin like this a long time ago with a weed wacker engine it whent like 5 miles an hour and the it cought fire learned later my dad through out that weed waker engine because it had a hole in the gas tank
but with a lawnmower engine im expeting 15 to 20 miles an hour

twizi wrote:i made somthin like this a long time ago with a weed wacker engine it whent like 5 miles an hour and the it cought fire learned later my dad through out that weed waker engine because it had a hole in the gas tank
but with a lawnmower engine im expeting 15 to 20 miles an hour

and another fire!,or at least a broken engine. I think your over working your engines, you gotta get more torque, and not just one set of different sized gears, weedwackers and lawnmowers have hardly any torque you'll need a torque converter

Don't delete the topic simply because you aren't happy with results man