Motor Bike Engined Cars

[aswearing]

how would you like to take a stock smartcar with 60bhp and change into a 180bhp monster capable of revving to 13,000 rpm?

i would, its called the smartuki. using a GSXR1000 Suzuki motorbike engine, it is able to reach speeds of 132mph and a 0-60 stint in a very respectable 4.2 seconds. tickle anyones fancy?

this car was one of a kind and was tesed against a mistu evo 8 but lost narrowly. however when tested against a suburu it held its own fairly well.

the smartuki isn't the only car to have a motorbike transplant, we all know of the mini being kitted out with kawasaki engines. are these the new must have toys?

[xavier]

They are a bit torqueshy and you have to rev them hard even when pulling away. But they can be great fun.

[HDi fun]

Torque shy is a term that's getting some exposure here. It's a term that I thought diesel drivers use to describe average petrol cars.

I'm not sure that you can call an angine that does 13,000rpm torque shy. There must be some somewhere in the range.

Perhaps 'rev-happy' would cover it nicely. Dumping the clutch at 8000rpm should make for interesting driving!!.

[pgarner]

motorbike engines are torque shy the gsxr1000 produe 180 bhp but only around 100 lbft of torque (hoping this is the correct fig was in an issue in car mag for august infact a whole section just on produing torque and how it affects the drive, but cant find it lying around think must have left in airport). the peak power is around 13k revs with peak torque around 9k. get away with it in a bike due to the low wieght under 300kg including driver.

motorbike engined cars work well in lightweight track cars such as lotus / caterham 7

[aswearing]

wasn't just an engine swap there was loads of extra Modifications to go with, after having it tweaked, a custom exhaust was made, all new brakes etc, new engine mount made and a cosworth dif to help it. it was all custom, and even if it was abit lapsidaisical on torque, simply overtaking at 10,000 revs would make me smile.

and scare the overtakee in the rover 200