Small engines are awesome. From chainsaws to go karts the little mills keep the world moving and keep work getting done. Few outfits in history have had the influence and evolutionary umph of the McCulloch company in the realm of small engines. This is especially true in the world of karting. Their pieces are now highly prized for people restoring vintage karts of racing them competitively. In this video we see a modified McCulloch MC49 engine that has been expanded to 80cc in displacement make some pulls on an inertia dyno.
The little buzzing engine screams happily as the RPMs climb and while the power output is not huge (it is sub two digits) we think that the hot rodded engine makes far more than it would of stock. One of the people comments that the output is low for 80cc and he is right when put in a modern context but when we look at the engine layout and remember that it is 50 years old, it gets much more clear that the work put into this engine has been fruitful. When you take a 5hp engine and make it 7hp without any forced induction, you have made a pretty significant output improvement. Making the same gains on a V8 without force feeding it would be as satisfying as they are with this little one-lunger.
7hp on any go-kart makes for a zippy fun ride. Taking two of these things as was often the case back int he day and mounting them behind you would make said kart and absolutely rocket and a death machine.
We’re in.
