I'm thinking about building a go-cart with/for the kids. Thinking about an electric cart... but not opposed to a gas (lawnmower) powered cart.

Has anyone here built one from scratch?

We had one growing up with a very simple welded tube frame. In this sort of "I" configuration (no pics):

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f = floors

(EDIT: diagram not coming out so well!)

Single Seated, sheet metal floor riveted to the tubes, steering assembly built from lawn mower/hardware store parts and a a braking mechanism that fit over the centrifugal clutch.


Put a 4.5 HP motor on that thing are terrorized the neighborhood for many years...good times.

our school has the SAE mini baja car that we build every year. they are very safe tube frame cars that have lots of suspension travel and use a 10- hp briggs and stratton engine, usually mated to a CVT. they also use alot of parts from ATVs so parts are easy to find

id say find a school by you and see if they have the baja progam, if they do they are more than likely to have old cars laying around that im sure they'd be happy to get rid of

Your school may build them for competition but my school wins the competitions.

:-P

Try northerntool.com, use to be Northern Hydraulics. They sell a complete kit or bits and pieces. Wish I had bought one for my daughter when she ask for one. We ended up with a horse instead. A new car would have been cheaper!!!

yeah our baja team was run by a bunch of idiots...so i started a formula team...we wont win..but it wil be lots of fun

what school are you , do you compete in midwest?

Engines? CVT's? It's all about the drivers, folks!

Soap Box Derby

http://gokartheaven.com/

Try this one

SWEET!!!!

I would recomend going gas for the unlimited run time. Batteries have to be re-charged, and there is downtime. Gas tanks can be re-filled in 2 minutes.

You want a simple flat cart w/ no suspension, or are you looking to get more elaborate?

BJH

And pollute to high heaven.

If you're considering electric, ask here:

ev@listproc.sjsu.edu

You could probably use a handful of the new DeWalt battery packs (containing LiFePO4 (I think) batteries from A123 Systems) to power the kart.

Skip

Probabely not the highest quality, but fair price.. China..


http://atvswholesale.com/go-kart-250cc-sahara-2seater.html

I helped a guy build a buggy from scratch. it was all square tube 1x1, 1x2 & 1x1.5 we made a mock frame out of wood, then used the wood pcs as template for the steel cuts. it was fun. I MIGd it all together but never got to see teh finished car

I was in the business of setting up indoor kart racing facilities and we did a lot of electric karts. If you are at all trying to do this on the cheap, I would stick with gas. To have the kind of performance that will entertain a kid over 6 or 7 years old, you will need to spend over a grand on the motor, motor controller and batteries.

That said, I can provide more info or help if you do decide to go that way.

Here's the deal...

We have a neighbor 3 doors down that has a little electric go-cart. But the kid is a bit of a jerk... and I'd love to put him in his place with the kids building their own go-cart... and beating him!

The boys are 7 and 8. I want this to be a dad/sons project, with them doing as much of the construction as possible. Simplicity is far more important than performance. At their age, they will be just happy to have something they can drive and claim to have built themselves. I was thinking I could do something tubular, helping them weld or thread pipes together and using a wood board/floor of some sort. The pre-fab idea isn't so bad... I looked at the Northerntool kit and it looks good, but it is about $700 plus the engine... which almost takes it out of scope for this project. I dn't want to sink $1500 into a project that the kids might not carry to completion.

Thanks for all the ideas... I'll check 'em out!

seriously consider an old baja car...since they are a bit larger, your kids will enjoy it for longer and you will enjoy it too

I will be doing something similar when the kids get a little older. They are 3 and 1 now, but I found some on-line plans here and there.

The best one that I found so far looks to be a doable project. I will have to look at the drawings a bit more and will probably redraw them to figure out how it all goes together, but I think I made a PDF out of it...

Let me see....


It's an old article...

PM me and I'll e-mail it to you. It's 1.2 Meg and the board won't let me post it.

Here is a collection of most of the pics from the article: