For the longest time I have found myself wanting a kart. A very good friend of mine had one growing up and that was the fix for the want. A couple years ago now we got together and made a nice little course in his yard and did a timed lap race. We tried to continue the tradition last year however, we ended up kersploding the engine in his kart trying to tune it up. Somehow, the governor didn't get reattached and the rod decided it didn't want to live anymore. Since then, I have been rebuilding that engine. Now though, I desired to build my own. So, for months and months I searched the interwebz hunting and scrounging forums and other sites looking, hoping to find the frame I longed to build. At long last I had found one. The glorious Tony Kart frame. Being well versed in Autodesk has been a blessing, as I did not find a dimensional draw, no, I found a complete 3d model made in solidworks. It took me a bit to break apart the assembly and detail the frame but, I did it. Next step was to get materials to start this build. Through my work I was able to get great pricing on a few sticks of 1" DOM steel tube for the structure. So, now I had my material but, no way to bend it. I toyed around with the idea of just using a torch and a barrel or something. Even packing with sand and using a cheap bender. I ended up driving up to Chicago to Eastwood. There, I picked up their heavy duty manual mandrel tube bender. Brought that home and put some expanding anchors into the garage concrete to mount it. This way I can unbolt it and park a car in there without worrying about puncturing a tire. Once that was all set up I decided to just dive right into making the frame tubes. First couple pieces were really just figuring out the bender but, I ended up getting the frame bent up properly. Bender was super easy to use and replicate bends. Next item on the list was tube notching. Picked up the cheapest notcher I could manage from harbor freight. Would not recommend for angles past 25-30*. I got most of the notches pretty dead on other than a couple. Past 25ish degrees the notcher doesn't have enough room to fit the material. Anyways, with that laid out I started tacking and welding. That is pretty much where this post leaves off. I've done much reading on engines and such has led me to want either a flathead briggs, like my friend's, or a clone. I say these because of cost for one, the flathead is ruthlessly simple and the clone because of multitude of parts and mods available. Anywho, let me know what you think and if you have any experiences suggestions. All are welcome. Oh, some pics too of the build here!
Us standing/working on our friends kart giving it a tune up.
The aftermath of last years debacle.
And now onto progress shots of my work. The bender.
The notcher.
After bending them getting them laid out in the rough locations.
Starting to tack and weld. (I'm not a welder, I just have one so I can pretend)
Well, let me know what you guys think. 
