Desertkart with Rotax 583?

[Mike]

First off I wish I would have found this site earlier. I have been searching for mini rail info and now I have found it.

Anyhow, I have the plans for the desert kart mini rail and I have some questions. How well does the Rotax 583 move these little buggies? I plan to build my car from 4130 aircraft tuning which will turn out half the weight as mild steel tubing. Im not sure what these chassies come in weighing so I may not drop to much weight. I got the 583 with a Reverse chaincase which im going to have to shoehorn into this little chassie. This motor has twin pipes and is said to be right at 100hp. I was told this motor in a 500lb ski and a 200lb rider would go 120mph so it should have no problem pushing around a light rail like this. Im looking for hard acceleration to keep up with all the quads in my area. Will this motor provide that? Any tips or info on these rotax setups would be great.

Thanks
Mike

[KWiKSand]

I can't say much about that motor, but expecting to cut half the weight by using 4130 isn't realistic. *The minimum you should use for main structure tubes IMO is still going to be 1.25 x .095 which will weigh the same as mild steel fo the same size. *You can cut some of the diagonals down to .065 wall or so, but you aren't going to be able to drop all that much just by using 4130 IMO

[Mike]

Why cant I drop down to Say .065" 4130? The tubing is so much stronger than mild steel. Dropping half the weight is not going to happen but a good 1/3 could be dropped. Please explain more about the need of the thicker tubing.

Thanks
Mike

[KWiKSand]

You can certainly do whatever you want. *You could even use .02 thick 1" tubing. *But for my money, the little extra weight to protect my head seems worth it. * *Someone correct me if I am wrong, but I haven't heard of anyone building with anything thinner than .095 for the main cage. * My personal feeling is that 1.25 dia tubing is on the small side to begin with, but then my only other experience with cages was in drag racing with a 1.625 min dia.

[bdkw1]

You might be able to get away with .083 for a really light buggy. The question is, how long do you want it to last and how good of an engineer are you? While you can build a cage from .065 it will crack and fall apart long before one made of .095 . Also a poorly engineered one will fall apart faster. On a small single seat buggy frame you will only save about 25#'s by changing the main tubes from .095 to .065 . Is your neck worth it?

[amergin]

Originally Posted by Mike\";p=\&quot

First off I wish I would have found this site earlier. I have been searching for mini rail info and now I have found it.

Mike, how did you find this site? Was there a certain link somewhere? Tryingto optimize the metatags and other site ranking features to make us easier to find. I'v heard comments like this all to often. Welcome to the site...

-Rusty

[Mike]

I will take your advise and stick with the thicker wall tubing. Any ideas on how much is needed for the panther? Im giong to do a double A arm rear setup and use Polaris Sporters 500 CV axles and joins with the knuckles. I may be making it a little wider as well. I love the wide stance.

As for design skills, I dont know to much about karts but I am a designer. I design and prototype RC airplanes for www.ExtremeflightRC.com. I understand what it takes to make something strong but I may have to do some reading up on suspension design. Im doing this for the fun of the project and I love a challenge.

Thanks
Mike

[Mike]

I found this site by going to the Buggy webwring from Edge products.

Mike

[Gene]

Mike,

You can make your car from different wall thickness tubing to save some weight and chromo is stronger than mild. Having said that, selecting the right material for the right part of the car is important if you want to save weight.

Opinions as always will vary and others will surely comment. For suspension components I would use nothing less than .120 wall chromo. For main frame tubing - excluding the roll cage - .095. For X bracing you could save some weight using smaller diameter tube and lighter wall thickness like .065. I would use .120 for the cage.

My entire car is 1.25 x .120 chromo. I could have saved maybe 20 or 30 pounds but I want a stout car that can stand up to sand or dual purpose driving. When friends come over and see the build they usually comment that it is unbelievably stout, which validates the direction taken.

Chromo allows you to select a slightly lighter wall thickness over mild but overall weight savings are small.

Gene

[Mike]

Im just worried that the power setup im going to use will not be that good for a heavy chassis. There does not seem to be many here that have messed with the snowmobile setups. I just want to make sure my buggy can keep up with or out run the Yamaha YFZ450s around here. Greg said that these two strokes are super fast but super fast might not be fast enough for me. LOL I guess dropping 20lbs would not make to much difference anyhow. Depending on the cost I may go with the mild steel.

Mike