This can only be awesome
So here we go a jet GoKart, this has been asked of me god knows how many times and i, like the people who ask think it's a great idea. Why have i not done it sooner well i did the Jet Bicycle so didn't want to do it straight after that and there was other things like X-Men to create but i'm on it now.
So to make this bloody awesome i'm going large and using the jet that i farted at france at with to power it. This jet as you can see is massive and loud so seemed a no brainer.
First of all then i got to mount it and do some mods to the kart chassis, so I've stretched the chassis by around 1.5m to the longest i could before it would not fit in the van (forward thinking eh) The jets centre of gravity is slap bang in the middle so would have liked to have the end of the cart to sit under the centre of the jet but couldn't slide the jet forward anymore as already its a worry how i'm going to deal with the heat this thing chucks out on the back of seat. So it sits where it does, so far this is all straight forward with just welding mounts n stuff on but i want to make this jet project a little different so in the next video a add the fuel and controls and rather than just running this on gas i want to try a different fuel and try and create a system where i can start the cart without getting out the seat as pulse jets are not known for there easy operation. here's a few more pics to see you over till next weeks video. I hate typing
So to make this bloody awesome i'm going large and using the jet that i farted at france at with to power it. This jet as you can see is massive and loud so seemed a no brainer.
First of all then i got to mount it and do some mods to the kart chassis, so I've stretched the chassis by around 1.5m to the longest i could before it would not fit in the van (forward thinking eh) The jets centre of gravity is slap bang in the middle so would have liked to have the end of the cart to sit under the centre of the jet but couldn't slide the jet forward anymore as already its a worry how i'm going to deal with the heat this thing chucks out on the back of seat. So it sits where it does, so far this is all straight forward with just welding mounts n stuff on but i want to make this jet project a little different so in the next video a add the fuel and controls and rather than just running this on gas i want to try a different fuel and try and create a system where i can start the cart without getting out the seat as pulse jets are not known for there easy operation. here's a few more pics to see you over till next weeks video. I hate typing
Experiment time with the Fuel/Controls
So this is where in my eyes this project is different from the JetBicycle in that i'm running it on a different fuel and more importantly i've built onto the kart a starting system as if anyone has witnessed the jet bicycle being started its a 2 man job and a pain in the ass.
Ok so the fuelling, The kart will start up on gas because this is the easiest fuel to light while engine is cold and requires no complex injection system, i've got 2 bottles mounted to help reduce the freezing up of the bottles due to the high demand and wasn't sure at the time if these small bottles would be upto the job but i will let you know now that they are fine and have coped well. So to start the jet i hold the sparker down and using the lever on my left let the gas in (the injector is a piece of stainless pipe capped of withe small holes drilled along 2 sides) until the gas is a flame and then i move to the leaf blower. Before all this i would have the leaf blower in one hand and be controlling the gas flow with the other until the ratio is good for the jet to fire up so to mimic this i needed to be able to control the airflow from the blower and the butterfly valve was the simplest way to achieve this. The lever for this on my right so once gas is lite the hand that was pushing the sparker now can control the airflow until the jet fires up then you just set the gas to a nice idol which is as low as possible so you don't waste gas and cause bottles to freeze up.
I will say this all works very well and if was to build again would not change a thing.
Ok so the fuelling, The kart will start up on gas because this is the easiest fuel to light while engine is cold and requires no complex injection system, i've got 2 bottles mounted to help reduce the freezing up of the bottles due to the high demand and wasn't sure at the time if these small bottles would be upto the job but i will let you know now that they are fine and have coped well. So to start the jet i hold the sparker down and using the lever on my left let the gas in (the injector is a piece of stainless pipe capped of withe small holes drilled along 2 sides) until the gas is a flame and then i move to the leaf blower. Before all this i would have the leaf blower in one hand and be controlling the gas flow with the other until the ratio is good for the jet to fire up so to mimic this i needed to be able to control the airflow from the blower and the butterfly valve was the simplest way to achieve this. The lever for this on my right so once gas is lite the hand that was pushing the sparker now can control the airflow until the jet fires up then you just set the gas to a nice idol which is as low as possible so you don't waste gas and cause bottles to freeze up.
I will say this all works very well and if was to build again would not change a thing.
On previous jets I've used liquid propane to get them really barking but wanted to try something new and recall reading somewhere that Pulsejets will run on anything that burns so as diesel is easier to get hold of and i can re fill the tank myself this seemed a good option. So once the jet is idling on the gas it will start to get hot pretty quick so would it just handle having diesel pumped into it.......turns out yes it can. I made a second fuel rail that sits just behind the gas rail and agin was just a stainless pipe with 1mm holes drilled along it, i wasn't sure if this would work or if i would need a jet to atomise the fuel but it worked.
Its not as clean a burn as the gas and you do get a bit of smoke which leads me to thing the fuel rail maybe should have been the other side of the gas rail but it worked so i was happy. Now the system i built in the video is not what is on the cart now because (i should have guessed this really) no fuel pump for a car etc can deliver the rate i need to run this thing, it's super thirsty, it will use a 5 gallon bucket to travel around half a mile so instead of pumping it in i pressurised the fire extinguisher fuel tank with air and had a second fuel tank which the pressuised air would force empty, i had a regulator of a compressor to regulate the pressure in the fuel tank so it was constant (so air tank had 5bar in with regulator set at 1.5bar so as fuel level dropped the air tank could maintain the 1.5bar pressure at all times, after each run i'd loose around a bar in pressure from the larger air tank) Then the throttle pedal was connected to a lever valve which was sprung shut, so the more i plant my foot the more diesel could pass through the valve, again would repeat this if was to build again as you can charge it with a foot pump so no batteries to worry about and you have full control of delivery and pressure. top job.
So now you just want to see all this in action......Next week people.
Its not as clean a burn as the gas and you do get a bit of smoke which leads me to thing the fuel rail maybe should have been the other side of the gas rail but it worked so i was happy. Now the system i built in the video is not what is on the cart now because (i should have guessed this really) no fuel pump for a car etc can deliver the rate i need to run this thing, it's super thirsty, it will use a 5 gallon bucket to travel around half a mile so instead of pumping it in i pressurised the fire extinguisher fuel tank with air and had a second fuel tank which the pressuised air would force empty, i had a regulator of a compressor to regulate the pressure in the fuel tank so it was constant (so air tank had 5bar in with regulator set at 1.5bar so as fuel level dropped the air tank could maintain the 1.5bar pressure at all times, after each run i'd loose around a bar in pressure from the larger air tank) Then the throttle pedal was connected to a lever valve which was sprung shut, so the more i plant my foot the more diesel could pass through the valve, again would repeat this if was to build again as you can charge it with a foot pump so no batteries to worry about and you have full control of delivery and pressure. top job.
So now you just want to see all this in action......Next week people.
So there we have it its done and it flys, Top speed as of yet is around 60mph as you can see in the video but i run out of runway so could be more in it but until i get on a longer runway i won't know. Everything works great the starting system worked as plan the fuel system once the main throttle was changed to the air pressure pump edition also worked without fault so if i was to build this all again i'd change nothing. Yes the chassis flexes a bit and there is low ground clearance but this never reared its head as a problem and did make the handling very good. The heat shield behind the seat was good enough although i had to change it to stainless as when the jet warms up it expands and can touch the shield so when it was aluminium it actually melted the first layer right through. Ok so thats a pulse jet GoKart ticked off the to do list.......whats next eh.
Colin Furze
Colin Furze