ex500

[CBielski87]

I've been looking for different engines for our team and one that strikes me was the ex500 (parallel twin), but no info about this is in the forums (that I could find). Anyone know of an fsae team that uses the ex500 (Kawasaki)? It'd have to be converted to EFI but boring it out to a 600 with high compression pistons along with its nice packaging constraints make that worth it, right?

[CBielski87]

I've been looking for different engines for our team and one that strikes me was the ex500 (parallel twin), but no info about this is in the forums (that I could find). Anyone know of an fsae team that uses the ex500 (Kawasaki)? It'd have to be converted to EFI but boring it out to a 600 with high compression pistons along with its nice packaging constraints make that worth it, right?

[Mbirt]

It's heavy and the general concensus on Ninja/ex500 owner forums is that catastrophic failure tends to happen after the first two engine modifications. It doesn't hold together very long making anything over stock horsepower. In my research I found that one of the theoretical Indian teams was planning to use it. Someone might've used it earlier in FSAE history also.

You'll be much more satisifed with any of the available 450cc-class thumpers.

[J.R.]

Unmodified that motor is awesome. Runs forever, had one in my 1991 EX500 (which was still running in 2009). Same design motor is still in the new bikes.

[BrendonD]

I could see the reliability and the availability of one of those (they're everywhere) being great advantages for a team looking to start out, however there are many other engines I'd go to before that given the availability of motors that come stock with a fuel injection system nowadays. If you're gonna bore the cylinder out, the singles aren't half bad for that either. Lots of modifications around for those, not to mention the weight savings of only having to enclose one cylinder with material.