05 trx 450r into a offroad kart/mini buggy

[bmayer]

I have an 05 trx 450r that I was trying to sell however the market is dead so I have decided to turn it into an off road kart or a mini buggy. Has anyone done this or can anyone point me in the right direction for info. thanks

[LEE1969GB]

The biggest problem is the lack of electric start, Its A pain in the arse having to unfastern your seatbelt and climb out and kickstart it. The engine itself would be ok is a smaller buggy and the front hubs, brakes, wishbones etc could be used, the rear end could also but not the best set up for a buggy.

[gootjr]

We have used many of those engines in our cars(with electric start) and they are a power house lots of torque and very fast.

[ruthlessxbeastx]

gootjr, how big is that fuel cell in that pic? also where did you get it :] i purchased a 1 gallon from summit but it was 90 bucks seems a lil pricy... sweet lookin rig :]]

[sicksand]

Those are his karts,very nice karts.

[razorback]

I am currently converting a yamaha blaster into a little buggy for my kids, loook under "projects" it is under FX-10. the only problem is the lenght of the frame if you possision the motor behind you and use the swingarm, I am going to mount my motor above the swingarm and run a chain to a pivot point just in front of the swingarm so it will work like on the quad. The other problem is the width is kinda set by the width of the rear axle. In the picture of mine I used the front of the quad however if i was making it for me, I would just take the a arms off and bolt them on to the outside of my frame, kinda like pilots are done, it would effectivley widen my frame by 22 inches in the front, the back all you can do is get wheel spacers.

[LEE1969GB]

Does the TRX 450R have electric start as standard?

[wyattboche]

Originally Posted by LEE1969GB

Does the TRX 450R have electric start as standard?

Depends on what year you buy. Yes they started the electric start I think in 06 or 07??

[atomicjoe23]

If you switch to an IRS ATV set-up you can lengthen the axles quite easily (relatively speaking based on your capabilities I guess).

We used the rearend of an '05 Polaris Predator 500 IRS we a section of the drive axles out of the center of each axle, then we took some Explorer driveshafts (with the splined slip section) and turned the diameter down on a lathe (I can't remeber how far down we turned them. . .I can measure if you like) to match our applications and we slipped one side of the driveshaft over each of the shortened stock Polaris axles. . .we then welded them up (TIG. . .this was the hardest part because we had to make sure they were concentric . . .we put them in the lathe and used a dial indicator to make sure our runout was minimized and tacked them in the lathe, then pulled them and fully welded them after we got them concentric) fully all the way around the axle tubes, after welding all the way around we drilled a couple of holes in the Explorer driveshafts (3 or 4) and put plug welds onto the Polaris shafts. The plug welds were added out of necessity as we cracked the fillet welds the first time out from the torque, but once we put the plug welds in we had no more problems.

You could do this with just plain tubing as well and not with plunging driveshafts. . .we used the plunging driveshafts to minimize the stress on the CV unit. . .looks pretty trick as well!

Here's some pic's:





The cost to do this isn't that bad either. . .especially if you can find used ATV IRS rearend. . .I bought mine brand new from BikeBandit.com for under $700 shipped. The driveshafts were like $20 each from the local salvage yard.

[gootjr]

Ruthless
Thanks!! The fuel cell is a Jaz 4 gallon cell