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gsustudent

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I thought I would take a moment to introduce myself, and my current projects. I was recently given 2 Austin Healey Sprites that are in need of serious restoration, being half insane and mechaniclly inclined I accepted them and am only begining to realize the amount of work that I have created for myself. I am a bit of a pragmatist in that I am not as interested in restoring them with OEM parts and making them like new as much as I am interested in using the bodies as platforms to make something that actually runs with the reliabilty of a "modern" car. I am tinkering with the idea of converting one of them to run on electric or some other "alternative" source simply for the nuts and bolts application of the theories that I have heard so much about. Has anyone out there done this yet? Do you have any suggestions about my new toys to keep me sain while I study for the Uniform Certified Public Accountant Exam? I am also thinking of dropping a motorcycle engine into one of them and using the engine parts to restore the other one as two engines together might make restoration of one of them easier...... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazyeyes.gif Again any suggestions or direction would be good as I am still in the planning stage on what to do with them.
 
Interesting ideas - toss them out on the Spridget Forum for input - oh, Welcome!
 
Welcome

Someone beat you to the Sprite bike (see attached).

Seriously, I have heard of the Motorcycle engine, but never the electric source. IMHO it would probably be cheaper to restore them both with used parts and they would be of more value.

What years are those Sprites? If the are early BE's I can just see Jack driving out to Texas.

Before you start these ambitious projects, I would really spend my time studying for CPA Exam. I remember those days to well my friend.

Patrick
 

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Welcome....Someone contacted me a few years back asking for my opinion on a solar powered MGA.....It was some college kids looking to do something 'different' I advised them against it but they were pretty determined. I never heard if they finished it or not, but I assume they didn't.
 
"I am also thinking of dropping a motorcycle engine into one of them and using the engine parts to restore the other ..."

Welcome. I'm not so sure about this idea, though. I suspect you'd end up doing thre times as much work and end up with a car worth half as much.

That said, there are a number of kit cars here in the UK that rely on bike-engines. You might find a little websurfing on their sites useful to see what's done.

The Fisher Fury is one kit that has a bike engine option:

https://www.fishersportscars.co.uk/

I think that Quaife UK also produces gearboxes suitable for use in bike-engined cars, though you'd need to investigate that.

https://www.quaife.co.uk/

I suspect that the power/weight ratio would suffer by comparison to the fiberglass kit cars, though it shouldn't compare too badly to the stock engine....

Good luck with them.
 
Welcome to the forum. There have been several electric motor conversions done with Berkeleys, which are even smaller than your sprites. A couple have been solar powered and a couple just batteries.

A motor cycle engine is an interesting idea but I think it'd be a huge task. Reverse gear might be a challenge - I think gear ratios in general would be an issue.

I'd stick with an original engine, or some other A-series engine.
 
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