There are so many insane motorcycle and powersport builds on YouTube that it's hard to keep track of. But the ones that interest me the most are when a creator takes products that are easily available to everyone and relatively cheap and puts them together to create a monster—I'm not finding a Hayabusa engine to stick in a kei truck.
Thankfully, in this video, the folks at BOOM kept it simple and affordable. I love how they started out with a rolling minibike frame, meaning they didn't have to pull out a perfectly good engine for the swap and waste money. The kit included everything except an engine and cost $677. The next task was to pair this with an engine.
The lads opted for a 196cc diesel engine from Amazon, which cost $110. The air-cooled powerplant doesn't scream "high-performance," and it's not. Once it was jerry-rigged into the minibike's rolling chassis, the lads recorded a top speed of 6 mph, which is, well, terrible.
In an effort to significantly boost the bike's top speed, the guys at BOOM bought Amazon's cheapest turbocharger, which cost just $129.99. The hope was to hit 20 mph, which would be an increase of more than 300% over the original top speed. But, at such a low retail price, it's hard to imagine that the turbo would do much if anything at all.
Pause for a moment and take a guess as to what speed you think the minibike hit on its top-speed run, then watch the video below.
A $129.99 turbocharger resulted in a top speed increase of 400%. Now that's value for money. In fact, the whole build only cost $916.99, and considering how it tackled the off-road section at the end of the video, I think it's pretty decent value for money.
