An Electric Forklift Motor In A Suzuki Hayabusa Motorcycle Absolutely Shreds
Most people would never assume there was power to be gained from swapping out a Suzuki Hayanusa crotch-rocket’s 1.3L inline-four engine with the motor from a forklift. However, some wild Danes did exactly that, and lucky for us, Youtuber Snooken Recordings was able to film their creation on the drag strip.
The owners of the bike stretched it out by 10 inches, then swapped out the engine for the modified motor, which they say has been improved to run at higher voltages and amps than it was intended. It came running at 48-volt, but now runs around 200-volts and 1300 – 1400 amps! When all was said and done, the beast gets about 200 horsepower, and weighs 164 kilograms. That’s significantly lighter and plenty more powerful than the standard Hayabusa.
When they took it to the quarter mile, it got a top time of 9.3 seconds! That’s faster than the Model S with Cheetah Mode that we talked about a couple weeks ago. That Tesla got a time of 10.48 seconds, which is a whole second slower than this forklift powered motorcycle.
I’m always blown away by seeing how creative engineers can hobble pieces together and come away with amazing EVs. Whether it’s someone converting an old Volvo to electric AWD, or these dragsters, it’s more than I would assume was possible.
