Hudson Eight GP No 8A.
I chose this car as I thought it fit the style of original Cyclekarts, and I liked the contrasting colours.
The Inspiration Car
I chose this car as I thought it fit the style of original Cyclekarts, and I liked the contrasting colours. Also being a complete novice at any sort of metalwork, I thought the body looked plausible.
The Chassis
The chassis is made from 3x1 steel box section, tapered front to back, then has a mixture of 2x1 and 3x1 steel box cross sections.
The Body
The body is hand bent aluminium panels, bent over almost anything I could find, the bonnet sections were bent over some waste pipe. The rear engine cover is made from fibreglass which I laid over a foam buck.
Running Gear & Engine choice
My rear axle is a 25mm kart axle from gemini fitted with hubs and adapters from gemini. The axle is fitted with oilite bushes giving me the ability to run either wheel drive, although I’ve found it better to have it locked both sides.
I have a Hyundai electric start engine with the govner removed and valve springs upgraded with a chinese mukini carb. I have a 10 tooth sprocket on the torque converter down to a 70 tooth 420 platewheel. My brake is a disk from gemini, and a chinese 125cc motorbike twin piston hydraulic calliper, with a generic Amazon master cylinder, this provides me with enough force to easily lock the rear wheels, but if modulated well, stops the kart very quick. I also have a mechanical cable hand brake of a kids quad which works very well.
How long did it take to build?
I started my build early January 2024, had a drivable car within 2 months, and had its first proper test at whilton mill, with no bodywork. It was then also tested at Stretton with only front bodywork, and ran faultlessly on both days. It was painted with completed bodywork on the Thursday before Malvern kit car show, it's still not finished now as I want to fit the nose section, and some more details on the side, but I thought I'd enjoy it a bit first, and with having a young family summer has been busy.
What’s the least and most favourite part of the build?
The favourite part of my build is the louvers along each side of the front, they were the part through the whole build I was dreading the most, and expected to make a real mess of it. Being multiple lengths
I opted to try and create a tool myself that could be used to do all of them. I ended up using a bit of an old hardwood garden patio table and using a router to get the shape, then cut slots in the aluminium with a multi tool and then hit the tool into the dye, doing each end, Then going back along the middle. I was convinced it wouldn't work. But I'm actually really happy with how they turned out. They
aren't perfect, but I highly doubt the original car was anything
like perfect either.
The least favourite part of the build is the fibreglass rear cover, it was messy to do, hard work and doesn't look great (it actually looked better when it was first done, but has now sagged). If there was a section on the forum for ways to definitely not do things, this would make the list, DONT USE NORMAL POLYSTYRENE FOAM!
Obviously I was aware of the resin eating it, so I wrapped it with cling film 100 times. I then stretched some fleece fabric over it and stapled it underneath. Then soaked it in resin, and it looked amazing! Then
as the resin started to cure. I saw it starting to sag in-between the wooden supports, knowing it was too late to change anything I left
it to cure, it was a mess. It turned out the the resin didn't eat it, the cling film had worked, it had melted it! I then filled all the sags with fiberglass and body filler, got it to a great finish. Then at malvern
when it was first run, the heat from the engine bay made it sag
some more, I intend to fix this over the winter.
The little details
My favourite small details are the decals on the front, and all of them really, they really stand out and makes the kart really stand out from a distance with it's contrasting Yellow writing and yellow wheels.
Many people have commented on the leather wrapping on the springs which is copied from the inspiration car, along with the seat that my girlfriend made from scratch with a little hindrance from me. The only thing I'd say I may have innovated is the bucket as an engine cool air duct, bolted to the engine with the pullstart cover, leading to a mesh grill on the side of the kart, this allows the engine the only draw cool air over itself when running, keeping the temps of the engine down, then there's a fan the other side to draw the air out of the other side keeping the engine bay temps down, and it seems to work incredibly well.
How does it drive?
It has always felt fairly good to drive, only really lacking low down power out of the corners, (this is probably down to my weight). Changing the carb has made a huge difference to this low down power.
The other thing we noticed was it bouncing around at the front, so we fitted some dampers (thanks mark) and put polyurethane bushes in them which seems to work.
Ongoing changes and tweaks
I'm currently building a new exhaust that will exit out the bottom of the engine bay, I never liked the idea of it coming out the top but I ran out of time before Malvern so just went with it. There are some bits of bodywork on the inspiration car I'd like to add, and also some fake exhausts, which I've actually started twice, and scrapped because I didn't like it.
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