[b3lha]

Seems like it's not the only one in existance......Some interesting commentry too.

http://aardvark.co.nz/pjet/gokart.htm

Yes, I finally took the kart out for a spin with the 100lbs-thrust pulsejet engine -- here's what happened:

As I expected, pure thrust is not the best way to power a gokart -- at least not on roads like the ones around my place.

My "test track" consists of a gravel road where the straight sections are not flat and the flat sections are not straight. It's worth pointing out at this stage that I weigh about 170lbs and the kart weighs about 90lbs when ready-to-roll. This represents an all up total weight of about 260lbs (depending on how much I've just had to eat).

Now, with 100lbs of thrust, that gives me a 1:2.6 power to weight ratio. While this is significantly more than your average passenger plane -- it's not as high as a jet fighter and, more importantly, it means that if I encounter a slope of more than a 1 in 2.6 gradient -- the kart will begin to slow and eventually stop.

It's also worth pointing out that jet engines tend to become more efficient as their speed through the air increases. They work by propelling a narrow column of hot air at very high speeds. Think of it like top-gear in your car - plenty of speed but not much acceleration.

As a result of this, the jetkart feels quite sluggish when moving away from a standing start. You can feel a gentle push moving you along but it's certainly not a "kick in the pants."

However -- and this is the tricky bit -- it very much feels as if the faster you go, the harder the kart accelerates. Indeed -- once I got up to about 30 mph that gentle push had turned into quite a noticeable shove and the kart was gathering speed at quite a rate.

As I said though -- the roads around here are not built for speed so I had to limit my bursts of power to the short (100 yards) between the tight corners and big dips in the road.

http://www.nickhaddock.co.uk/jetkart.htm

http://www.jetkart.co.uk/

http://aardvark.co.nz/pjet/turbinenuts.shtml

http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/kart.html

Since the Jet-Powered Go Kart was a bit underpowered and slow, our engineers decided to mount the Gluhareff G8-2-20 Pressure Jet on a 1990 Cannondale SM-500 Mountain Bike. This worked out quite well. The top speed was approximately 28 miles per hour on level ground (without pedal assist).

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...m=260126457222