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[albitz]

I can see your point on that, although if thats the case it would be as easy to just drop another engine in, at £500 for a decent second hand unit. :-/

[Kevin Wood]

I can see your point on that, although if thats the case it would be as easy to just drop another engine in, at £500 for a decent second hand unit. :-/

They appear surprisingly durable in kit cars, contrary to what you might expect. I tour with quite a few guys who run bike engines doing pretty high road mileages and abuse them on track (you wouldn't put up with BEC "ergonomics" for road use alone!).

They have swapped the odd tired engine between them but IME they will last much longer than 10k miles. Most failures are due to the oil system not being properly engineered causing oil surge or scavenge pump drive failure rather than wear.

When you consider that you can drop a standard bike engine in from a scrapper (and bikers are always putting them through hedges) whereas at the same level of performance with a car engine you are probably doing at least a bit of tuning work, and hence investing time and money in the engine, I'm not sure, from a durability point of view, that there's much in it for a small, light car.

You'd have to ask how durable a Smart engine is against a normal car engine too, of course!

Kevin

[Seth]

then the engine in its compartment:

Looks to see if he can spot the "Briggs and Stratton"

Of Milwaukee USA, Mr Wood?
Quite like the Lombardini jobs meself!

[albitz]

Ime the amount of use/abuse a japanese bike engine will take is astonishing.
They are brilliantly engineered.

[Marks DTM Calib]

I can see your point on that, although if thats the case it would be as easy to just drop another engine in, at £500 for a decent second hand unit. :-/

They appear surprisingly durable in kit cars, contrary to what you might expect. I tour with quite a few guys who run bike engines doing pretty high road mileages and abuse them on track (you wouldn't put up with BEC "ergonomics" for road use alone!).

They have swapped the odd tired engine between them but IME they will last much longer than 10k miles. Most failures are due to the oil system not being properly engineered causing oil surge or scavenge pump drive failure rather than wear.

When you consider that you can drop a standard bike engine in from a scrapper (and bikers are always putting them through hedges) whereas at the same level of performance with a car engine you are probably doing at least a bit of tuning work, and hence investing time and money in the engine, I'm not sure, from a durability point of view, that there's much in it for a small, light car.

You'd have to ask how durable a Smart engine is against a normal car engine too, of course!

Kevin

Trouble is, your going a stage further again from a Kitcar as its heavier still and more likely to hit a lot of stop start driving.

[tunnie]

Special Daz versions 

[aaronjb]

Not much a daily driver with the bike engine fitted though.....and with full rebuilds every 10K miles to!

I don't deny it would be hugely impractical and not an every day car at all, but I bet it would be a blast down the country lanes - although they do have an absurdly high CoG (at least looking at them) .. perhaps a bike engined Smart Roadster would be more fun.

[Marks DTM Calib]

Not much a daily driver with the bike engine fitted though.....and with full rebuilds every 10K miles to!

I don't deny it would be hugely impractical and not an every day car at all, but I bet it would be a blast down the country lanes - although they do have an absurdly high CoG (at least looking at them) .. perhaps a bike engined Smart Roadster would be more fun.

TBH, if you want something like that then a Smart in any form is the wrong starting point.

[bluey]

You would have to pay me some serious dosh before I got behind the wheel of that bucketfull of sickness. Jesus, that is one horribly vinyl'd up concept by some friend of Dorothy agency exec rocking on Special K at the time.  And they got paid for that.   

I was looking at these Smart things last year for some stupid 'I could save money' reason.  After seeing so many up for grabs with failed head gaskets and ovalled bottom ends I dropped the idea quicker than Katie Price's knickers. 

There is one micro car I like the look of, although it's not in production which is a shame.  The T25.



Behind the wheel it doesn't have that nancy boy look about it either:

[tunnie]

Jesus, that is one horribly vinyl'd up concept by some friend of Dorothy agency exec rocking on Special K at the time.  And they got paid for that. 

Its no concept, they are some of the sales fleet cars 

[Lazydocker]

Ime the amount of use/abuse a japanese bike engine will take is astonishing.
They are brilliantly engineered.

Mine took a fair bit