Project Funmobile: Beaters & Mini buggies & Dirt bikes

Re: Project Funmobile: Beaters & Mini buggies & Dirt bikes

NoCoast — Wed, 05 Mar 2014 09:35:50 -0600

A friend of mine occasionally says we need to buy things like this...
I usually try to remind him that he has a caged rally car and it would actually cost less to finish that and just go rallying.
Find someone in PNW willing to finish the car for you for trade for something useful or cash. You have web design skills, every shop needs a decent website but doesn't want to pay someone usually. Work it out.
Keep car in states, rally in Oregon/Washington. Problem solved.

Re: Project Funmobile: Beaters & Mini buggies

john vanlandingham — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 22:56:44 -0600

Quote
Eric Ewert

Quote
john vanlandingham

Quote
Eric Ewert
This is brilliant in my opinion, that being said my opinion is not worth much. Top tier drivers (example: f1) start off in go karts. So why would the same idea not work for rally?

The best have OFTEN started with dirt bikes...some were even national level... Gronholm and Biasion spring to mind.

True, come to think of it so did Colin Mcrae. I think thats mostly due to the fact that dirt bikes are more accessible as is racing/ competing with dirt bikes vs the mini buggy. The mini buggy on paper requires skills that translate more directly to cars than a bike though. Also it probably doesn't beat the living fuck out of your body anywhere near to the same extent that dirt bikes do... you know all about that, right John? B)-

Look it isn't the 'exact body movements that we need to train up.....the real thing is that thing I was talking about once what I said the Xratty matt has down...it is what i call in my own dialect "the approach".....the attuning the eye and the mind to see and translate 'the world' (the crown of the road, the lay of the curve, the slope up/down, the surface marble--ish or grippy or just 2 line swept, shadow, light, the car--gear position on road, the tires fresh/beat---the whole world) and translating that into second by second decisions on what to do---untouched by human reasoning...

The mechanics of a steering wheel or bars, foot brake only versus finger and foot, shift with hand vs foot....gas with foot vs hand---that's not important....

So it doesn't matter if you ride a bike or some fucking delicate expensive 4 wheel thing...it is the same crap in the head (FUCKIN" FULL THROTTLE YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW!!!! OH SHIT! Brake! HA! SAVED IT FULL GAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OH SHIT WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!! Whew! er FULL GAS (CLANG!) Yeeeeeeeeeeeee HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW" <------the internal dialog, notice its all crazed yelling and giggling? No reasoning...

A bike is cheaper, fast enough, stronger, easier to fix, and for real growth and learning, HARDER...

Learn in harder conditions, then some ol slow pokey car is comparatively easy...

Thing is though there has to be a big compulsion, a big internal PUSH or external DRAW to FORCE the student to charge harder into the corner and BRAKE!!! And executing it well takes TIME...

Maybe the hardest part is learning to critique oneself without any other baselone..
Thashing around is fun...
PRACTICE isn't always fun...It's practice...

Re: Project Funmobile: Beaters & Mini buggies

Eric Ewert — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 22:38:50 -0600

Quote
john vanlandingham

Quote
Eric Ewert
This is brilliant in my opinion, that being said my opinion is not worth much. Top tier drivers (example: f1) start off in go karts. So why would the same idea not work for rally?

The best have OFTEN started with dirt bikes...some were even national level... Gronholm and Biasion spring to mind.

True, come to think of it so did Colin Mcrae. I think thats mostly due to the fact that dirt bikes are more accessible as is racing/ competing with dirt bikes vs the mini buggy. The mini buggy on paper requires skills that translate more directly to cars than a bike though. Also it probably doesn't beat the living fuck out of your body anywhere near to the same extent that dirt bikes do... you know all about that, right John? B)-

Re: Project Funmobile: Beaters & Mini buggies & Dirt bikes

Carl S — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 21:48:43 -0600

http://gokartsusa.com/Joyner-Python-Buggy-800-2-Seater.aspx

This one seems to tick a lot of your boxes.

Re: Project Funmobile: Beaters & Mini buggies & Dirt bikes

Skye — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 20:32:05 -0600

Looking around videos from that guy.... the description for this one is:

Moto Retro Race Meeting (old bikes, old blokes, cold beer)
Honda Pilots, Piranha Buggys, Canam Mavericks
Top speed 114km
Average speed 86km
Palmerston North 3rd November 2013

Do we have these kind of events and if not why?????

Anyway there's another possibility the Canam Maverick but yeah they are like $15,000 to $25,000 from what I can see

Re: Project Funmobile: Beaters & Mini buggies & Dirt bikes

aj_johnson — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 20:20:21 -0600

That piranha looks alot more like my honda than the original pilot did. I got the frame from a lady selling her sons old toys (died in desert storm) came with the 250cc 2 smoke in boxes. She was super happy to see it going back into service. He raced it in some 250 class short course stuff but the frame was a totally custom job.

There was also a 700cc two stroke made here in the US That sold for like 17k new. Every now and then one pops up for sale in the 5-6k range. Name started with an R but I can't for the life of me remember what it was, but it was bitchen.

I've looked into the piranha but building one is the same as building a car.... Gotta buy one complete.

Re: Project Funmobile: Beaters & Mini buggies & Dirt bikes

Skye — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 20:10:15 -0600

Another 1L Piranha this time a mad Kiwi going rather quick

Re: Project Funmobile: Beaters & Mini buggies & Dirt bikes

Pete — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 19:46:48 -0600

Time to break this video out again...

Re: Project Funmobile: Beaters & Mini buggies & Dirt bikes

Skye — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 19:29:26 -0600

The Honda Pilot/Odyssey looks good but I've been looking around and a good condition FL400R goes for around $6000+ not exactly cheap (I suppose the lower powered models are cheaper if you're going to do a swap anyway) and while there is a big community of enthusiasts they haven't made them since 1990 so parts aren't going to get any easier to find. Then if you're talking about swapping in a 600cc, you're doing lots of fabrication and expense on an already not-cheap platform and I want something to have fun with right away. Then there's also the issue of "transferable skills" to a real rally car and single gear with hand controls isn't ideal. On the plus side, they are small and easy to tow/store, and the right size to have fun at reasonable speeds.

It seems like I'd be further ahead to just get a buggy kit that takes a motorcycle engine to start with. I've been looking around today and the Edge Piranha is the smaller brother to the new Barracuda I mentioned in the first post. It can take most bike engines from 600cc and up. The designer is in Australia (they sell mostly plans but also parts) and the design seems to be very well tested, it's been built many times, dedicated build and support forums, which can't be said of a lot of other mini buggy plans I've been looking at... I'm getting the impression some people seem to enjoy the build/engineering part more than actually driving them (sound familiar?). Also like rally cars, it seems to be a lot cheaper to buy one already built.

Here's the manufacturer's site:

http://www.edge.au.com/Categories/Piranha

Short review: "The Piranha Buggy is an offroad racing buggy designed by Edge specifically to be built by regular people, in their garages. The buggy comes in both kit and plan form, with the plans option giving you the chance to buy separate pieces from the kit, that you don’t have the time to build/weld yourself. We featured the Barracuda Buggy by Edge last month and it proved to be very popular, the Piranha is quite similar to the Barracuda but it’s been formulated to be much easier and quicker to build. The chassis and suspension elements are easier to build (and cheaper to buy), the rack and pinion steering comes right off a road car and the engine options all fall into the slightly more affordable price bracket."

Even though the plans are from Australia I was able to find several for sale without much trouble (one in Ontario for $7500, one in Michigan for $5500) ready to go so for the same price as a nice Pilot FL400R you get a proven design 660-800cc buggy, with sequential gearbox, with clutch/brake/gas pedals so you get experience shifting in/out of corners and left foot braking if you want, etc etc seems like a big win in the "transferable skills" department.

The other options I've looked at
- Badlands buggy in Alberta: lots of plans but not a lot of builds, not well tested, known design flaws
- Krasch AR51: looks nice, but over $10k to build, hardly any built so none for sale
- Drakart: looks nice but website says "Start at $33,900 turn key" fuck that
- DesertKarts: supposed to be good but doesn't take bike engines well. Obviously sand/dune focus

So right now I gotta say the Edge Piranha is looking like the top choice given my list of requirements in the first post

Tell me this doesn't look fun. Lots of oppo, shifting, power slides
Piranha buggy vtr1000

Attaching some Piranha photos below

Re: Project Funmobile: Beaters & Mini buggies & Dirt bikes

Carl S — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 18:17:53 -0600

Yeah, the stock honda pilots certainly aren't the quickest things. I could imagine that they would be quite fun with some spotbike 600cc engine in there! They are a little weird, though, because they have a thumb throttle and hand lever brakes on the steering wheel. No foot pedals. They also quit making them like 25 years ago and clean examples will cost 3-4k. The closest thing nowadays is the new polaris sportsman ace. But the seating position is all wrong and overall layout is way too upight and I could imagine they're quite tippy. They also don't look nearly as robust, like they'd fold in half if you land on the nose too hard.

Re: Project Funmobile: Beaters & Mini buggies & Dirt bikes

Skye — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 14:44:59 -0600

Hell yeah... this guy isn't carrying a lot of speed through the corners but I like the camera angle

Honda Pilot FL400R

Re: Project Funmobile: Beaters & Mini buggies & Dirt bikes

Skye — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 14:40:03 -0600

NICE, thanks AJ, that's what I'm talking about.... and great info

Re: Project Funmobile: Beaters & Mini buggies & Dirt bikes

Skye — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 14:38:51 -0600

Most of the rail buggy videos seem to be "mudding" or "hill climbs" but you get the idea

Re: Project Funmobile: Beaters & Mini buggies

aj_johnson — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 14:35:37 -0600

Ran a fairly modified pilot for a couple of years as a fun toy.... They are a hoot. Went through a couple of motors. 250cc liquid cooled head big pipe was a load of fun, but not enough power. 400 cc polaris or someother snowmobile motor was more fun, but ultimately finicky old electrical. The fzr 600 motor was the real ticket, 6 speed and loads of sauce.

Blew that motor and sold it motorless to a dune tour company in oregon.... Never should have sold it. 8' drops at 45mph were fairly common. Rear end and axle was built with semi truck steering linkage parts. Twin shocks in the rear with about 12-13" of travel.

Fire/forest service roads are definitely where it was the most fun, however I would jump right into a 600 or bigger motor if I were to do it again. (or maybe a narrower rear tire but more power is betterrrerr)

Re: Project Funmobile: Beaters & Mini buggies

Skye — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 14:19:30 -0600

I've thought about selling my street bike and getting a dirt bike. It certainly takes up a lot less room than a buggy. So the Honda CRF is a good one? My cousin used to do motocross he can probably dig something up, he's more into downhill biking (cycling) these days.

But I'm still curious if anyone runs buggies or rails on dirt roads and how it compares as far as a "scaled down" rally experience. The point being that it's already designed to do what you want, doesn't require any fabrication, and won't break after a couple runs like a beater would.

The Honda Pilot/Odyssey looks pretty fun, only single speed, but balanced pretty well. They only made them for a couple years, don't know how many

Then again you've also got stuff like this for $2500

http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/pml/rvs/4347178474.html

VW Sand Rail with rebuilt 1600cc dual port
rare(ish) 5 rib bus transmission with reduction boxes (way stronger than the typical 3 ribs)
6 fog lights
All the wiring is redone complete front to back and ran inside/through the tubing so it will never snag.
New stainless steel switch panel with master kill switch, push button starter, interior light, 8 auxilery switches for all the fog lights (with a couple spares for future additions, pre ran through the framing for easy upgrades)
tow lights ready to plug into the back of your truck
has bolt on/off tow bar for flat towing behind your truck (insured as a ubuilt trailer, $50/year)
31x10.5 mud terrain tires
also have paddle tires on rims for the sand included in sale
steering brakes
5 point harnesses
aluminum gas tank
custom made snorkel out of PVC piping brings the air filter into the cab to avoid any mud or water
has bazooka style exhaust also have the stinger exhaust for it
autometer 5" tach with shift light

looking for $2500 obo but will take offers

Re: Project Funmobile: Beaters & Mini buggies

john vanlandingham — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 10:37:35 -0600

Quote
Eric Ewert
This is brilliant in my opinion, that being said my opinion is not worth much. Top tier drivers (example: f1) start off in go karts. So why would the same idea not work for rally?

The best have OFTEN started with dirt bikes...some were even national level... Gronholm and Biasion spring to mind.

Re: Project Funmobile: Beaters & Mini buggies

Eric Ewert — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 10:14:22 -0600

This is brilliant in my opinion, that being said my opinion is not worth much. Top tier drivers (example: f1) start off in go karts. So why would the same idea not work for rally?

Re: Project Funmobile: Beaters & Mini buggies

alkun — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 00:24:06 -0600

http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/rds/mcd/4345768198.html

http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/264/212/b03.gif

Re: Project Funmobile: Beaters & Mini buggies

alkun — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 00:14:41 -0600

or you could have the coolest thing ever..
http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/rds/mcd/4345543062.html

Re: Project Funmobile: Beaters & Mini buggies

Carl S — Sun, 02 Mar 2014 19:16:20 -0600

Honda Pilots are fun.

Re: Project Funmobile: Beaters & Mini buggies

TronDD — Sun, 02 Mar 2014 18:50:55 -0600

You're saying you have access to logging roads that you can practice on? Not that I condone practicing at speed on any open road (regardless of how rare you think it would be to find anyone else on them) but...

Why not just buy a beater car?
Only missing requirement is a cage, but looking at the cages on these UTVs, seems you could put a pretty comparable one into a car fairly cheaply. Plus you'll have a car around it instead of nothing.

You said "stick with one model", but a completely different type of vehicle doesn't do that, so why impose that limit if you bought another car?

Tim.

Re: Project Funmobile: Beaters & Mini buggies

Skye — Sun, 02 Mar 2014 16:17:51 -0600

Looks like a lot of them are based on the VW Beetle 1600 engine, and wheelbase/track? That seems maybe on the big side, but I suppose it would handle more like a real car.

There's also these things which are a lot smaller and more UTV/toy like

Turn down the volume:

Re: Project Funmobile: Beaters & Mini buggies

Skye — Sun, 02 Mar 2014 16:09:42 -0600

All kinds of options

http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/search/?sort=rel&areaID=16&subAreaID=&query=dune+buggy&catAbb=sss

I guess "sand rail" is also a term I should be looking for, whatever that is

Project Funmobile: Beaters & Mini buggies & Dirt bikes

Skye — Sun, 02 Mar 2014 15:58:56 -0600

Last night I was thinking to myself, "Self, it would sure be nice to have some FUN on those awesome logging roads I have access to, while I climb Bullshit Mountain to get my XR up here, built, running, inspected, and insured"

I even went so far as to do some Craigslist searches for project cars here in Vancouver BC (always a dangerous thing). XR4Ti's are getting pretty rare around here (only seen 1 for sale this year), there are 4 Volvo 240's for sale, there are quite a few Cossie MB 190Es, even looked at some Datsuns, but it would make a lot more sense to stick with one model (the XR) so as to have a pool of common spares and knowledge. Of course that means I'll also have to set up the truck for towing and get a trailer first. Maybe, I thought, a turnkey rally beater will turn up around here (already insured in BC) that I can have some fun with. Not very likely.

But then, why do I need a CAR if I want to have some tail-out sideways fun outside my door?

"I wonder if there is such a thing as an offroad go-kart", I wondered, so I wondered over to Google.

That's an Aussie kit, the "Barracuda". Seems like it would be a blast although the top speed is definitely high enough to kill you without much trouble, but that's also the case with any rally car.

It looks like there's all kinds of these projects being built in NA as well eg http://www.minibuggy.net/

My requirements are pretty simple:

1. RWD, full suspension, shifter, caged
2. Smallish, maybe fits in the bed of a truck?
3. Low to moderate amount of fabrication required
4. Low center of gravity (no ATV crap) but can handle rough logging roads with the odd washout
5. Around 5 grand or less
6. Maybe a 2 seater so I can take people for rides and get them jazzed to participate in real rally

See, I want these driving skills to be directly transferrable to the rally car when I finally get the fucking thing on the road. You know how it's supposed to take 10,000 hours to get passably good at something? How are we supposed to get those hours eh? Spend a hundred grand taking a "rally driving course" 1000 times? Spend a hundred times the seat time towing your car around to events and embarrassing yourself in public? Spend 20 years doing only local events a couple times a year and never getting better? These buggies should be easier and cheaper to build, store, fix, and recover from ditches too. I know dirt bike skills can be helpful but why not go with something that at least has the same number of wheels.

I'm just starting to look into this but thought I'd ask around here in case anyone else has one of these and has some insights from a "stage rally" point of view. I have literally 100s of miles of logging roads out my door at the workshop, and I want to spray some gravel this year. I'm going to have a short ring road on my own 25 acres too, after I install a culvert and lay down some gravel.

Legality shouldn't be much of a problem, I don't know if these are treated the same as ATV/UTV but then again the chances of running into another human being on these roads are low, let alone an officer of the law.

Here's some more links. A lot of them seem to be basically the same as dune/sand buggies.

http://www.protodie.com/

http://www.rickskraschsite.com/

http://sinistersandsports.com/

I'll post more videos and findings as research continues over the next few weeks and months. Still got a while before the snow melts at the workshop.