This Jet Engine Powered Go-Kart Hits 60 MPH

You read that right. YouTube personality and all around ingenious inventor Colin Furze just dropped his video about his latest project, a jet-powered Go-Kart, and it is all sorts of awesome. And yes, it will hit 60 MPH given enough runway (see video below.)

First of all, a little bit about the man behind the build. Professionally trained as a plumber, 32-year-old Colin Furze has been tinkering around in his garage since he was a young kid. After leaving school at the age of 16 to fully go into plumbing, Furze soon fell in love with how well his inventions played out on video. First excelling as a BMX rider than transitioning into building projects that stretched the limits of garage engineering, a growing online audience solidified his decision to keep building motorized projects.

Some of his most notable projects included a jet bicycle (which gave Furze the impetus for a Go-Kart), a stretched motorcycle, a flame thrower scooter, and a bicycle with tires made entirely from ice. A lot of his specialties do revolve around jet engines, so there’s that.

Furze’s jet engined kart seems to be his magnum opus as of late. The physics behind the jet kart are technically simple. A force is going in one direction (the jet) which pushes the kart overcoming frictional gravity and normal forces to push the kart in whichever direction Furze steers.

The kart chassis was lengthened about 1.5 metres and the jet engine was centrally mounted aft of the seat. The kart starts with gasoline and transitions to diesel with a leaf blower motor providing enough moving air to ease the transition between the two fuels. Two pressurized tanks, one with air and one with fuel all cleverly controlled by a foot lever, fuel rail and butterfly valve controls the fuel flow through the jet engine.

Read more about the details here.

What results is a genuine Jet Kart. In the video, he gingerly brings the speed up to 60+ MPH without skipping a beat. One only wonders what he could achieve with more technical training. And something is telling me this is only the beginning.