Ride on Mower Engine?

[Wrekin wanderer]

Me again!

Excuse my ignorance - I'm not much of an engineer, but have been interested in diesel bikes for a while now and dreaming of cobbling something together on the cheap that could keep motorway speeds. So pursuing different avenues than the standard "cement mixer engines", as a friend calls the 8 & 10hp engines often used in conversions.

I would be really interested in your opinion of whether it would be possible to use a diesel engine scavenged from a mower, such as this one using a yanmar 18hp engine:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/COUNTAX-RIDE-ON-L ... dZViewItem

Thanks for your patience,

Mike

[Byrdman]

I believe Countax used the vertical shaft Yanmar 2V78 engine.

I guess you could use a vertical shaft engine but transmitting power to a horizontaly spinning rear tire will take some creativity. And sadly, many times that creativity comes with a bunch of extra drag loss.

[Stuart]

I think the Yanfield used a vertical shaft engine only turned to the horizontal. I recall the oil ways were changed to make this possible. They are reintroducing these engines after they got the noise levels down on them. I think a new version of the Vertical is out but the horizontal is taking a little longer. I talked to a friend of Dragon's at the Brit Rally and he seemed to know a bit more on these. Maybe PM him with some specific questions and he might be able to ask his friend? But there is info out there. I'll have a look later when I'm back from work.
Good engine to use from the power perspective I think.

Ok, the evening now and I just found the article I remembered reading. Link below

http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199 ... anmar.html

[Byrdman]

That article was published in 2005 and since then, I'm 99% positive that Yanmar America in Buffalo Grove, Illinois and Yanmar Manufacturing in Adairsville, Georgia have killed the 2V project.

Great engine but they we're noisy as hell.

[Stuart]

Ahh, that's a shame Nice engine for our purposes though.