I plan to build a left hand side locost bike engined. All the pictures I can see are RHS. How much difficult would be with a bike engine to route the steering shaft to the left?

Thanks.

There may be problems due to the engine needing to be over to the left to get the propshaft in reasonable line and also issues with the exhaust getting in the way, But I am sure its been done,
Steve.

So you mean having the column on the left (LHD), using a conventional inline 4 bike engine mounted the 'normal' way?

That would certainly present a few problems since the engine really has to sit accross to the left hand side in order to get the output sprocket facing down the tunnel rather than at the right hand side footwell!

The highest output big bike engines tend to have the carbs or throttle bodies mounted nearly vertically so they end up being pretty tall, roughly 600mm by the time you've added an air filter.

An engine from one of the bikes which are more "sports-tourers" might give you a bit more room to play with since they often have side-draught carbs. Or perhaps a V-twin??

I'd imagine there would be space for the column to pass along between the engine and the left hand side of the bonnet, but you'd possibly need a few UJ's to achieve it!

Someone on the continant must have built a LHD bike engined seven??

Good luck, I'm sure you can find a way!

Just been having a look through some links.

Looks fairly straightforward, this guys built a couple of LHD bike engined 7's, no idea what steering rack he used but it probably says on his website somehwhere...

http://www.seven-nl.tk/
Rescued attachment LHD bike engined.jpg

or you could go with a shaftdriven bike engine ...

Hello,

US builder here, but not a frequent poster...

I am about to finish my R1 powered locost with Left hand steering. From what I understand the R1 has the output closer to the centerline than most bike engines, so it makes it a little easier. To help keep things reasonable on my car, I moved the engine a little further forward and to the right side to get the clearances that I needed and to keep the the prop angle reasonable.

The real problem area is the steering shaft. If you are willing to use more than two u-joints (I was not) then you can route the steering around the engine and not have to shift it to the right so far. There are plenty of pictures on my web page, specifically in the "Engine" and "Chassis" sections under "Construction".


[Edited on 1/31/07 by R1 Seven]

Agriv8 has the steering routing you will need on his V8 powered MNR..

PM him for a pic, it will easily avoid a bike engine on LHD

We use Busa engines in our LHD Fisher Furys. The engine was moved slightly forward compared to the RHD version. You can see some photos on our website. The weight of the engine can be offset by placing battery, etc to the opposite side.

Chet