1984 Honda ATC 200 powered race mower

Ive been working on this for a while now and have regreted not posting it a while ago but just havent had the time to, but here it is, its definitely not done yet, it still has quite a few bugs to work out but is definitely one hell of a ripper with the slap shifter on it, and actually handles really well despite the sketchy steering setup lol, but anyway heres a few pictures i took over the time that i built it.


You can see the engine donor hiding in the background

Both the front and back axles were liberated from an old pink go kart i had laying around


























itll be one hell of a toy once i get the fuel issues solved, and some electrical stuff, i can ride it right now, but it just stutters when you really try to give it hell, but you can definitely get up to a decent 55 mph, itll probably do 60ish once i get a small fuel pump and battery on it, becuase the fuel tank is just barely below the the carb enough to screw with the gravity feed.

Looks like a wild ride! Nice to see you posting stuff again.

Pretty cool. Yeah that gas tank is a bit low. With a fuel pump you'd be set.

I already have a small pump, but it's hooked up to the stator which will only provide enough voltage to run the pump at high rpm, but all I should have to do is put a battery on it and wire everything up. But I'll be posting more on this in the future, that little 200 is just a placeholder for something bigger now that I have a working chain setup

What about just using a vacuum pump? Snowmobiles do it that way.

If you could get your hands on a Honda Crf450 engine, they put out about 50 horsepower. That would be pretty hot in there. Probably be able to smoke those tires I would think. 50 doesn't sound like a ton of power by some standards but when you think the last of the vw beetles in the late 70's put out 50 hp and you can go down the highway at 70 mph pushing all that wind, it's pretty hot for something like a dirt bike or lawn mower.

I miss my 450r I had, but those are known to have tranny issues, which is exactly what happened to mine, I wanna get a cheap crashed street bike somewhere in the 600cc range, that would be a ripper

And I cant figure out where to get a vacuum off that engine

Lovin' this build! I like the color contrast!


I don't know about vacuum, but you can get a pulse from the oil fill.

I think I'll probably end up goin with an electric pump, becuase I want to have different lights and various electrical components and will have to put a battery on eventually anyway

Crankcase or you'd have to tap a port into the intake manifold. An electric pump would be better for quick starting after it sits awhile though. Vacuum pumps need some cranking to pull the fuel up.

I'm goin to get a battery this weekend, I gotta fix the throttle cable, then I'll try to post a video for yall

I'd really love to see more of the drive side and such. I've got a Craftsman II without engine, and a Chinese 150cc dirtbike to donate almost everything needed. Curious what you cut, and how your steering fits around that engine. Very cool project!

Its Looking good.
Could also extend (or fab up some new ones)  the gas tank mounting points  some to lift the tank up higher.  


I has to do this to my craftsman when I switched to a slide carb.
I went 1.250 higher and shifted the mounting points .750 forward and have no issues with the hood. I do believe that the tank can go at least .500 higher and still fit fine.

Another area to check could possibly be your main jet (if it's only acting up at 3/4 throttle or higher ). If it was pulled from a running atc that was using the factory exhaust and air box, then was mounted in the mower chassis and then modded  with a pod filter and open exhaust there is a good chance that the carb needs to be re-jetted.
I will also say with my mower, during long periods of higher rpms my setup suffers from fuel starvation and I think the problem now lies with the gas tank. I think the gas line hookup orifice is too small in diameter and does not allow enough fuel to flow into the gas line fast enough.

That's what I ended up doin, I just haven't posted pictures yet

I had to cut my dash and hood to get my tank up high enough to gravity feed correctly

Fuel flow issues can also be caused by a plugged up vent/not enough air being able to get back into the tank. Not in this case maybe but just something to keep in mind because sometimes you don't think of it as much as the actual fuel line.

Never even touched 5th gear in that video

Very cool!

Unfortunately this mower has a patchwork quilt for a frame now I'm going to build a tube frame for it when I have the time to. The original frame bent really bad when I was drifting from the grass in my front yard into the road, I honestly didn't expect it to last to long anyway, especially since MTD makes their frames like swiss cheese with a million holes for all the different models lol

Just realized that I never uploaded any pictures of the chain drive, steering, brake setup, or the gas tank after I relocated it so it would feed correctly.

Very cool my man I love it! Too bad it wasn't a 2 stroke but then again I'm sure you have plenty of power to spare as it is!

I had a Yamaha 200 blaster at the time I was building this mower that I wanted to use the engine from but the tranny on it was pretty jacked up it, but once I rode it with the motor it already has on it I realized that it probably doesn't need to be much quicker lol

chevy8988 wrote:

"Doesn't look that bad on camera"

I dunno man it looked FUBAR to me! Lol