I'm looking for a place that has small displacement motors (ie motorcycle engines) for sale. New motors are ok, ideally with integral transmission.

This is for my open wheeled racer, lets see those links.

 

ebay son

 

Absolutely ebay... or Craigslist for wrecked sportbikes. You might also see if there's a local sportbike club in your city with a website... there might even be a Motorcycle Salvage place near you.

Try this:
http://www.fullthrottlecycles.com/li...-Illinois.html
Here:
http://www.chicagomotorcycleguide.com/REPAIRS.HTM
Clubs:
http://www.chicagomotorcycleguide.com/CLUBS.HTM

 

VF500C/F can be found for a good price rev to 12-13K rpm without problem and with minimal, mods they make 70 or so whp. And the best part with integrated 6 speed tranny etc they all weight 140-150 lbs.

 

Yeah i know about ebay I was hoping to find a place that could supplyy me with a few of the motors.

Ill check craigslist, good call.

 

Loki-in my previous venture and attempt to make a living, i bought salvaged cars at insurance auctions...and i dont know how many bikes (all sorts) i've seen go for $400-500 with relatively low mileage, almost new bikes, less than 1-2 years old, people wreck them all the time, this may be your best bet...if you buy a whole bike (even wrecked), you may not have to fab as much stuff on your own to get to work right...
i've always wanted to make my own open wheel car and thats how i would approach the drivetrain
GL to you

 

Our formula SAE team uses R6 motors, another friend of mine used a GSXR 600 motor. Pretty sure they're both integral transmission, and they make good power. Hell you could even megasquirt them.

 

Thanks Whaa, i might do that. Did you need a dealer license for that?

Cjerigan, Im looking for a place to buy engines as for ECU micro/megasquirt for sure.

 

maybe...i remember doing a lot of fishy things to get by, your state may be different...when i lived in AK i didnt need anything but a reg. business license, which was free i believe, here in NC i had to pull some strings
do this if they require a license:
if you know someone that does it, offer them money to take you as a guest, if your nice they may not even charge you at all, i bought stuff for people before, they usually just gave me 50-100 bucks just as a good deed i guess
if you dont know anyone, well then you gotta get creative, and money talks,
GL i hope it works out for you
and 600 cc is good power, seen some 900's woa fast

 

find a motorcycle junkyard. we've got like 3 around here, usually filled with smashed 2 week-old sportbikes.

 

try to get a whole bike, you'll save a lot of time with all the little parts. plus you'll get the ecu and harness...why bother with a programmable ecu, most new bikes are all pretty much tuned to the nuts anyway.

 

Indeed. Down here in San Diego county we see a lot of young Marines purchasing brand new GSX-Rs, YZFs, ZXs, and CBRs, and then promptly attempting to violate Newton's first and third laws of motion with them.

Visit the motorcycle shops in your area and find out what happens to these bikes. Some smaller M/C shops even keep their own junkyard out back. The damage to these bikes tends to involve the frame and front suspension. Damage to the drivetrain is often little more than some scuffs and scrapes. Usually, any bike with signifigant frame damage (especially around the fork head) is written off. If at all possible however, try to obtain the damaged frame along with the engine- having the frame (with its associated numberplate) can be valuable if you ever have to deal with DMV. Not to mention getting your hands on all the electronic bits that Mach929 mentions. Aside from bypassing the kickstand switch, you can probably the use whole wiring harness as-is.

 

They are usually turned pretty shittily actually, plus that only works if you're leaving it stocked.

 

something to consider, and maybe you've already looked into it, but the oiling systems on MC engines are not designed for the lateral loads that car can generate. on a motorcycle, going around a corner basically keeps the oil in the pan and around the pickup due to leaning the bike over.

on a car, the oil will slosh pretty badly. back in my fsae days we did some testing and the engine loses oil pressure almost immediately when you enter a corner. we then took a few heads apart and found the camshaft bearing surfaces to be in absolutely horrible shape. this was on a cbr f4i engine.

you might want to invest in an accusump, or at least add some baffles to the oilpan.

 

a lot of good points, a motorcycle buys wrecked bikes from insurance co. so they can turn around and make money on them, therefore, you know you will pay more vs. buying it yourself...think this way, why does planet miata buy every wrecked miata on the east coast that they can get their hands on, im just trying to point you in the right direction if you want to go the cheap route...im an expert at that, lol
GL

 

To be honest I was sorta surprised you needed to study that

 

the judges always want a justification for why something was done. if we simply added an accusump the judges would be on our asses for not having any evidence to support the need. if we had nothing in place, they would ask us why we didn't have any safeguards against oil sloshing...

 

This is a problem particularly with the Hayabusa engine, which has led to the development of some very interesting (and very expensive) dry sump conversions.

On the other hand, the Kawasaki ZX series engines are reputed not to suffer from oil starvation on lateral loading, and are in fact used on the T-rex automobile. Simiarly, the BMW K-series engines have been widely used in the Grinnall Scorpion 3, again without modification to the oil system. Some have even turbocharged them.

 

the Kawasaki i knew, i also heard that the r6 was good too.

The BMW is good to know but the $$

 

easy fix, find an aprilia or similar with a dry sump engine.