How to Build Motorcycle-engined Racing Cars (Speedpro) [Paperback]

How to Build Motorcycle-engined Racing Cars (Speedpro)


As anyone who read his long-running series of articles in 'Race Tech' magazine will know, Marengo constructor Tony Pashley is as adept at conveying the technicalities of race car construction to the reader as he is at actually building the cars themselves. With the modern motorcycle engine now the power unit of choice for the majority of cars in the smaller – and some in the larger – capacity classes in hillclimbing, it’s perhaps surprising that the modification and installation of bike engines for use in competition cars has rarely been covered in detail in any publication. So it’s good that Veloce have entrusted to Tony the first book to be devoted entirely to the building of these cars. This is an essentially practical guide, covering all the basics of race car design and construction (of both tubular and honeycomb chassis) based on experience gained with Tony’s three highly successful Marengo chassis. In any design process, other people’s ideas provide not only inspiration but a valuable guide, and a useful feature of the book includes multiple examples of suspension construction, engine installations, damper layouts, exhaust and cooling systems and many more essential items laid out 


on one or more pages for instant comparison. Materials and hardware selection form another important part in the process and the author guides us through these and indeed all the myriad of other basic engineering techniques involved. An engineer is, he reminds us, someone who washes his hands before going to the toilet! – an old saying perhaps, but just one example of Pashley’s immensely readable style that provides an easy grasp of a complex subject. This, together with literally hundreds of diagrams and full colour illustrations, make this book an absolute ‘must read’ for anyone contemplating such a project.