Those that listen to my podcast know that I enjoy working turning wrenches on vehicles and engines. Before my friend Stephen moved to Colorado he dropped off his old Honda ATC110 3 wheeler. It was in pretty bad shape. The drive train was all twisted up from when the chain fell off and jammed up. Fenders where cracked and the front fork was tweaked a bit. Only good thing was the 110cc engine fired up right away.

This gave me an idea. When I was younger I always wanted to build a go cart but never had the funds, tools, and my parents where very wary of the idea. Now I have a perfectly good 110cc engine, a welder, and no longer under the supervision of my parents :) .

After a couple 11mm and 14mm bolts the engine was freed from the old 3 wheeler chassis. Time to get rid of the old chassis and parts I am not going to use.

I looked online and these chassis’ don’t really sell and would be a pain to get rid of otherwise. A sawzall and cut off wheels made quick work of the pressed steel chassis and tubes.

With some scrap material I had left over from other projects, I fabricated an engine stand for the 110cc engine.

I then wired up the various electrical bits of the engine. These engines have very little electronics to drive them. An alternator generates the power for the sparkplug which is controlled by the CDI (Capacitor Discharge Ignition unit). I found the wiring diagram for this engine here.

On the other side of the engine stand I mounted the throttle and ignition coil.

What is left on the engine stand to build is an exhaust system and adding a fuel tank. For the exhaust I found a $15 mini bike/moped muffler and some 1″ 16AWG steel tubing. The fuel tank is a $6 plastic mini bike tank. Next update on this project I hope to have those installed and the engine running on the stand. This engine needs a complete tear down as it leaks from every seal and I would rather not get my new go cart all oily!