How to Build Motorcycle-engined Racing Cars (SpeedPro)

Well written - good technical content and entertainingly written.

I have always wanted to build a single seat hill climb car of my own design. And Tony Pashley's book may well have cured me of that. I'll probably dream of buying an OMS now instead. But this book is superb. Anyone wanting sets of drawings, or how to build a kit car has probably missed the point. It's stacked full of really useful information and superbly written. I even learned a number of things that are useful for the production car I currently run in sprints and hillclimbs. If I get the OMS I'll know loads more about running it.So in short stacked full of useful info, really well written, and it's probably saved me lots of angst. Superb.

Covers a lot of stuff you will never use, but is none the less VERY informative. No 'Blueprints' I'm afraid, but you do get a good idea of the cars layout. If you are planning on building such a race car from scratch, my advice would be to invest in wood rather than steel to build the prototype chassis. Make your mistakes and THEN build from metal. Combined with the Haynes "Build a Roadster" book, you should be able to build something from scratch. The two books complement each other. If you have the time and skill, you have an awesome road car in the making.

It's not that easy to explain why I gave five stars to this book, but I'll do my best. At the beginning, I have to say, I've been quite disappointed with it, because I didn't find a step-by-step guide on how to build my race car, I mean, there's no list of materials and tools, there's no suggestion on how to set your workshop and the drawings inside it are just meant to explain concepts rather than being parts of a blueprint (just to make some examples). But you have to read it, and to read it carefully, because this book gives you an all-around idea of every aspect, difficulty and frustration you can go through if you decide to start such a project. So that you can use the book as a reference on which subjects you have to undertake a study in (chassis design, welding, etc) to acquire the necessary knowledge and practical skills you will need not to fail. And when you have acquired all that you'll need, you can go back to the book and follow the path described in it to use all your new knowledge and skills. My opinion is that the title of this book should have been: "How to plan a motorcycle engined racing car project" because if you mean it as a guide to make a plan for such a project it's worth its weight in gold.So, with that explained, both if you are courious about dropping a bike engine into a car chassis or -most of all- you are seriously thinking about building a race car of your own, this book is strongly recommended (by me, at least).

This is a very good book to read and there are very clear instructions if you want to build a single seater race car for hill climbs etc and the only thing I'd like to know is where do you get some Honey comb Aluminum from and square tube steel from as this isn't very well explained in the book.

I have other things to do besides feedback

This book is at exactly the right level of detail for someone who is interested in general kit car building / race car building.A lot of the concepts will transfer across to my future project, even if I choose not to use a bike engine. It's got the right amount of formulae in it to illustrate a point, but not so much that everybody's eyes glaze over.Well worth the money even if you are not going to build an actual racing car, but rather some form of weekend car.I especially enjoyed the section on monocoque design using aluminium honeycomb.

I like it because its an up to date reference on how to build racing cars. Exactly what I wanted. Thank you

Conforme à mes attentes. Bonnes informations.

Ottimo testo ,chiaro e ben illustrato per veri appassionati!

Excellent book! Well illustrated and packed full of info!

Ok

So I have been planning on building my own "motorcycle" engine race car for a while now so when I saw this book I immediately bought it. When I read the review some people complained about how there wasn't enough information in the book or that the pictures in the book are too small. I found this not to be the case, obviously if your planning to build a car like this you can't ONLY buy this book and expect to be able to build something like whats on the cover. Here is what the book does well and what readers can expect from this book:Pro's:-This book provides good BACKGROUND on all the aspects of building a motorcycle engine race car. You can see this just from looking at the table of contents. Its also a great starting point for learning about suspension geometry.-This book also contains many pictures, although most of them are small, that can be very helpful. Sometimes its good to be able to visualize a design and draw from what other people have done.-This book contains some very specific information, that I haven't been able to find anywhere else, about how to build a race car specifically using a motorcycle engine. There are certain modifications one must do to a motorcycle engine, such as changing the oil sump, in order to use the engine in a car.Con's:-Like I said before this book isn't really as much a "how to" build the car on the cover, as the title suggests, but more a guide. You will probably not be able to build a race car only using this book.So in conclusion I would definitely recommend this book as a good background text rather than a "how to". Also buy this book if you are specifically looking to use a motorcycle engine in your race car because it contains some very specific information regarding that.