This project has been slowly coming along for the last year or so. I bought a 1985 Honda Odyssey FL350 rolling chassis. If you’re not familiar these were single seat, full suspension buggies with a 350cc 2 stroke, CVT with forward and reverse, and a full suspension. They would do about 65mph, Really ahead of their time, but never really sold well.

We picked up this chassis with the intention to put a snowmobile Rotax engine in it. The old rotax’s are plentiful, powerful, reliable, and most importantly....CHEAP! I actually bought this right before deploying for 8 months and my cousin did a lot of work to put it together. I’m doing a couple videos of the build and will post some pics. Below is the link for my first build video:

https://youtu.be/EeNXW2BH9t4

Dang, that's a lot of engine to stuff in a tight space. Good luck, can't wait to see her running.

I honestly thought there’d be more room to work with relative to the engine size. I guess that’s what you get when dealing with a single seat buggy.

As promised, a few pics along the way. The first is the chassis how I bought it. Second is the 1979 snowmobile with the 500cc Rotax donor engine, third is where we had to notch the frame for the engine to fit, and lastly is the engine shoehorned in the frame. It took a good bit of creative customization of the exhaust to get it in there...

Cool project! Looks like you have your work cut out for you. That thing will certainly have enough power!

I expect it’ll be the little things that are the most challenging. I’m not sure how I’ll do the brakes, and not sure where to go with the suspension, but that’s 1/2 the fun. I’ll figure those out once it’s moving under it’s own power.

Got another build video up. We finish the engine install, get it running, and built the cage. It’s finally starting to look like a buggy again!

https://youtu.be/74Oixs5ZjcY

Progress, man! Looks good.

Thx, the big stuff has really come together. I’m kinda dreading the little details like brakes, fenders, seat belt, etc.... then taking it all apart to paint, but that’s any project. It’s all about the details

It’s alive.... and mean! Still got a lot of work to do, but it is driving under its own power!

https://youtu.be/mhCr7rngpFk