(Accidently) Building an Australian Dirt Kart

Looks fun for screwing around with, but I’m looking for something that I can really get down with performance and driving-wise. I’m definitely ok with suspension, but that’s obviously way outside of what anyone is going to do with a sprint kart frame. Unfortunately, it’s a very strange market out there for offroad four wheel vehicles. There’s nothing even roughly equivalent to the type of value proposition sprint kart manufacturers offer in terms of price/availability/capability. One can get a piece of utter crap from anywhere from $2000-$10,000. There’s also a bunch of “kit buggies”, which are way cooler and could fit the bill theoretically, but the work involved with building something like that is wayyyy beyond anything I’m interested in tackling. And there’s just all the UTV’s which weight 1500-2000+ lbs and cost $15-$45k. It’s pretty bleak, but I’m sure I’ll keep a casual eye in case anything worthwhile pops up. This is what I had about a year and half ago, Honda FL350 - 350cc two stroke, but they only made it one year - 1985 and sourcing parts is a pain so I got rid of it before I drown. :grin:

fl350

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check out this build

That link doesn’t seem to go to anything regarding a kart?

It’s a little video of a clever limited rear suspension system a guy built on his kart on my discord.

Lemme get you an invite and then I can give you a proper link.

Wow, that’s pretty cool and bold to go for it like that. I might even be interested if it were either a kit or at least well out of the prototyping stage and into the proven and tested realm.

At times our karts can sometimes feel fairly complex in some ways, but my short time with the FL350 and its suspension and more sophisticated steering layers showed me that we have it pretty easy in reality. Those areas, if they’re not right or undeveloped can be deep rabbit holes. :scream: :slightly_smiling_face:

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