what is your opinion on best dual sport motor

[lstrong]

A friend of mine is building very economically priced dual sport buggies right now and they do pretty good.He has put together about 5 as of now and they all have different engines in them.My question for you guys is what do you think the best 4 cylinder motor is for a 2000-2500 pound dual sport buggy and why? I would like to get one of these for myself at some point .I was leaning toward a nissan ka24 if I could find an adapter to get it behind an 091 bus box.I have some experience with them and they make good torque and are pretty easy to get 175 horsepower out of. I want to stick with something fuel injected because I think they are simpler to deal with than carbs (at least for me anyways). Let me know what you think. Thanks.


P.S. what do you think would be a good price for a used engine and harness as well.

[JONES PERFORMANCE]

gm ecotec

[lstrong]

why ecotec, How much would it take to get one of those together with ecm and wiring harness.I can do a nissan ka24 2.4 liter for less than $750. but I dont know of an adapter system for it.

[JONES PERFORMANCE]

readily availabe gm product. not sure on costs, but they are a proven engine in sandrails already and other offroad applications. they also respond very well to aftermarket modifications and have alot of aftermarket support such as ecms, turbos, etc. the 2.4 ecotech in the saturn ion puts out 175hp stock and 164 ftlbs tq.

the biggest issue for that engine you have there is the adaptor, if that engine is the same(bellhousing etc) as the nissan sr20 then kennedy has one.

[lstrong]

The sr20 and ka24 use different bellhousings .I saw that kennedy had an adapter for the sr20.I have an sr20de in my daily driver sentra that runs pretty good but it is really high strung.I thought about a japanese sr20det but Its hard to tell from the outside what some japanese kid did to the motor in japan.They can be had pretty cheep and make 200 horse stock though.

[KitRacer]

The question was "what is your opinion on best dual sport motor"
I would say ECOTEC from Turnkey hands down.

[Kbach66]

A friend of mine is building very economically priced dual sport buggies right now and they do pretty good.He has put together about 5 as of now and they all have different engines in them.My question for you guys is what do you think the best 4 cylinder motor is for a 2000-2500 pound dual sport buggy and why? I would like to get one of these for myself at some point .I was leaning toward a nissan ka24 if I could find an adapter to get it behind an 091 bus box.I have some experience with them and they make good torque and are pretty easy to get 175 horsepower out of. I want to stick with something fuel injected because I think they are simpler to deal with than carbs (at least for me anyways). Let me know what you think. Thanks.


P.S. what do you think would be a good price for a used engine and harness as well.

Give Chris at Benchmark perforamance a call.
He uses a 4cyl Honda motor that is super reliable and well priced. He can do a complet drop in kit with engine/adapter/wiring/etc.

He's actually in Ramon too, so it would be easy to swing by the shop and get the details.

(760)484-0986

[lstrong]

thanks for all of the responses. The main reason for this post was to see what everyone's opinions were.When I say "best dual sport motor" the criteria includes
1.Reliability
2.power
3.total cost
4.readily available parts

If Anyone else has any thoughts or suggestions ,post them.I'm open to anything right now.I'm still a ways away from actually putting one together.

[jgbjgb]

Go to www.minibuggy.net it is a forum of/for buggy builders. They should be able to help you out.

[lstrong]

I tried mini buggy but they are 99% motorcycle engine sand cars.What I am leaning towards at this point is a nissan ka24de.I found out kennedy does make a kit for it.They call it the frontier 2400 kit or something like that.These engines stock make 155 horsepower at the crank,about 130 to the wheels on a stock 93 240sx.What is really nice about these are they are extremely reliable,I know of a few people that have over 200k on their engines and still going strong. They are also fairly plentiful with all the drifters pulling these motors in favor of turbo motors out of japanese 200sx's,and skylines.They are very simple.They are not a multiplexed computer system.The engine ecu is not hooked up in network with body control modules general electronics modules and so forth.all that is neccesary is to pull the ecu, wiring harness, and engine and drop it into the buggy.My goal is to get an 091 bus box,The adapter kit and clutch,and the motor for around $2000 bucks.I know the budget is kinda tight but I think it can be done as long as I rebuild the trans myself and not get crazy with the motor .The turn key stuff looks really nice but they are also very proud of their stuff.The whole buggy hopefully would cost me less than 20 grand have 13 inches of front travel and 15 inches of rear travel with king shocks all around and king bumps in the back and seat 4 people.