Mean Green - the go-kart build!

So my boys wanted a go cart, which to me seemed like the perfect opportunity for a father and sons project.

So we picked up this little jewel. It's a manco frame with a predator 212 engine swap. This little guy is mean, it clocked off 42 mph on gravel with my 230 lb cousin on it. He said there was more left in in, but the road was too rough.

Obviously that's too fast for the kids, so we are going to make some changes. We don't have any plans set in stone, but it'll probably get bigger tires and a live axle... and it'll get geared WAY down. They want it green and black, that's where the name comes from - although at this point it doesn't match up well. Lol

First order of business, the tear down.

Sweet!

Figure those stands are sturdy enough for the job?

In reply to NOHOME :

Well they are HF stands so....

I love this.  A go kart is on my short list.

I have a few leads on some other go kart frames... This is kind of addicting.

I was looking at powerwheels for my 4 year old yesterday and I thought "why not a go kart I can gear down for him now and change the gearing later!"

so yeah, relevant to my interests. 

I heartily approve.

I still think we need a Challenge  kart sub class with HF spec clone motor rule and a $250 budget cap

Ovid_and_Flem said:

I still think we need a Challenge  kart sub class with HF spec clone motor rule and a $250 budget cap

That... Would.... Be.... Awesome!

Ovid_and_Flem said:

I still think we need a Challenge  kart sub class with HF spec clone motor rule and a $250 budget cap

What if you got a racing kart chassis for free?  Then assemble it with spares from the kart trailer?  I think my dad had to buy a fuel tank for that kart, so he might have $60 invested in it.  

In reply to jmabarone :

I, too, have an obsolete margay road racing kart chassis sitting in my garage.  Hence, I may be a little biased!

This is great. I just picked up a go kart for my kids so i will be following along. Ive heard good things about the predator 212 engines. There is a website out there diygokarts.com i think, that has tons of info and knowledgeable people on the forum. 

Ive thought about talking to the other parents around that have kids and karts and setting up a rallycross style race for the kids. 

So I cleaned up the frame with some degreaser, then flip it upside down and cleaned the bottom. Then I spent about half an hour with a flapper wheel removing any scale rust and smoothing out some of the previous owners crappy welds (you can see the square tube he welded on.) We looking into some oem style rearends off of quads and rear engine mowers. If we can't find one that we like soon, we will just order one from gopowersports. We also want to do a disc brake swap. We'll have some updates along with some pics later on today.

I was thinking about it and decided to do this in stages so the boys don't get bored with it. So we are going to paint it and then put it back together and let them ride it around a bit as they haven't rode it yet. I'm going to order a remote kill switch and if they start getting carried away I'll E36 M3 that crap down. Lol

We scuffed up the frame and painted the bottom half. This afternoon we will do the top half. 

I got an old rider at my sister's that she borrowed and blew up. I'm going to go over there and Rob some parts that might benefit us down the road. 

The prep work for the paint isn't perfect as it's going to be cut, grinded, and welded on. Once we're done (as if) well blow it all apart and sand blast the frame and do a better job on the paint. But until then, this rattle can quicky will do just fine.

Stage one is done. I got the kart painted green. All the accessories are painted black, looks pretty good. Plan was to finish up yesterday, but I realized I forgot to get a throttle cable. From what I read bike brake cables work good, so I planned to get one yesterday while I finished up my last minute Christmas shopping... Of course I forgot to grab it and by time I realized it all the stores where closed. 

I got discouraged and didn't mess with it. This morning while everyone was playing with their new gifts, I ran out and put the go kart back together. I took it for a spin around the yard a few times. It went pretty good on flat ground, but you had to keep it moving to make it up the little hills. 

Next step is live axle swap and bigger tires.