Electric Gokarts

[tasslehawf]

I am looking for some information on electric gokarts. My brother, dad and I currently run a rotax (gas) gokart. We have a spare chassis from a rebuild about a year ago. We had the rotax out last weekend and were throwing around project ideas like we always do.

Given my welding and machining skills, I thought it might be fun to build up an electric kart. If I could figure out the best solution to mate up to the existing gears/axel, we would be golden. Along with the existing chassis, we need a motor, controller and batteries.

The motor of choice seems to be Briggs and Stratton Etek-R.
http://www.robotmarketplace.com/marketplace_etek.html

Here is a soon to be commercial Kart system.
http://www.voltagp.com/

Does anyone have any information or experience building an electric gokart?

Does anyone know of any other commercial electric karts available?

[Fishy Jim]

I'm changing out the motor and gearing on a broken mobility scooter to be reworked into a gocart for the kiddo. I've got a gear reduced 20V dc motor I bought cheap some years ago and just now discovered a use for it. The scooter provides everything else needed - power supply, suspension, aluminum chassis (well, the start of one) and the charging system all in one completely free package. The rear diff is still intact, but the original motor sheared its shaft and is supported outside of its frame (so it's junk). It even has pretty new batteries (like under 6 mo's old).

Should be a fun ride for the 6yr old.