Mini Gas Turbine Motorcycle

minibike

Russ W. Moore of Bad Brothers Racing has an awesome project on his hands. The motorcycle frame is from a Yamaha YSR-50. Smaller than a standard street bike and larger than a pocket bike it comes with a 50cc engine and is street legal. The gas turbine is being constructed from a Cummins ST-50 usually found in large trucks. The documentation is pretty thorough and covers the build from the beginning. It’s still in progress, the exhaust and pumps still need to be mounted, possibly a starter too. The ECU will be a Basic Stamp II. See, you don’t need to be Jay Leno or have 150K to have your own jet bike.

[thanks arocketman]

18 thoughts on “Mini Gas Turbine Motorcycle

  1. I saw that a few weeks ago linked from a Yahoo Groups jet list.

    I think it’s hilarious that he mentions you might attract undue attention from the police because it looks like a possibly not streetlegal pocketbike – nevermind that the engine is to be replaced by a jet turbine.

  2. Okay, some serious issues I see here. He’s designed this thing to run off of jet thrust, unlike the Y2K jetbike Leno drives(which is a turboshaft).

    His exhaust exits right in front of the rear suspension, so the rear shock, and tire, will be subjected to the ultra high temperature jet exhaust. The shock will fail in moments and the tire, not long after. Especially at startup. Since the guy in NZ has demonstrated, accelleration with the few pounds of thrust is not very high. Before the tires can rotate fast enough to have a chance to dissipate the jet blast heat, it will either melt, explode, or both.

    Ducting the jet blast will seriously reduce his thrust-and there’s no room in the frame to attempt a homebuilt free power turboshaft. Perhaps ducting above the tire and then an afterburner might work. He’s gonna need serious heat shielding for the seat, and sides of the combustor and exhaust to avoid roasting the driver’s legs from radiant heat.

    Damn, how do I get sponsorship for a barely half-thought-out experiment? “Super Dave” would be proud!

  3. I remember seeing jay leno’s jet bike, made form a helicopter engine. there was like a 10 second delay in throttle response, does the same apply here?

    not that i am going to be building this any time soon.

  4. Thanks for the link and all the great compliments on the bike. To Phugedaboudet who had some good questions, the bike will use pure thrust and will have a ducted exhaust. Although not visible in the photo above, the rear suspension has been relocated so that the exhaust plumbing will fit quite nicely through the frame in as short a length as possible. Thee will probably be a few pounds loss in thrust, but nothing to really worry about. Heat shielding will be provided by ceramic coating, heat wrap, and thermal barrier shielding inside of the body panels.

    The project is more than barely though out. While the project is a bit crazy trying to put that much stuff into such a small frame, that has been the idea the whole time. I could have used a larger frame and made things easier, but then it would not have been as unique. Thanks to all who have followed the build so far, and there is much more to come. We are test firing the engine again today, and let me tell you that scary is the only word to describe it.

    Russ

  5. the aardvark guy from NZ did alot with valveless pulse jets too, aka the lockwood hiller pulsejet. i want to build one for a jet kart, sucks fuel like mad but as much as 300 ft.lb. thrust with an augmentor and the engine weighs 30-40 lbs

  6. This is crazy. In 2004, I started the exact same project, using a YSR-50 and a Turbo from a giant Diesel, I designed a turboshaft powerplant and began building it. I had the exact same idea as this, however, unfortunately, I was unable to complete the project because my mother commited suicide and I lost everything I owned when I went ballistic and tried killing some people including myself. That’s all behind me now, thank god, and I am still building turbine powerplants (mostly turbojets) but wold like to start again on this project. please email me if/when you complete this mirror or a project you have here. Thanks, bradpenrose@ymail.com

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