Getting ready to do a Lifan 420cc swap

[BuggieMaverick]

My '84 Club Car DS has the dreaded rod knock and it's gotten pretty noticeable. I realized that I should finally do something about it after someone commented about the noise.

It's our family golf cart so I'm looking for as little downtime as possible while I'm doing the swap. I also want reliability and factory function. Can you folks look over my part list and make sure I'm not missing anything that I can't buy locally?

Parts I have coming:
-Lifan 420cc
-Vegas Carts adjustable carb, engine mount, starter/generator bracket, exhaust header, taper adapter, and a new belt.
-1 1/4" muffler clamps

I'm not looking for a huge power or speed increase so I'm going to try to reuse my stock Club Car muffler to keep sound down. Will the Vegas Carts header line up with it or should I get a piece of flex pipe?

I'm also going to try the stock Lifan air filter housing and air filter. I drive on a lot of dusty gravel roads so I'd rather have filter filtration than air flow. My cart already has an electric fuel pump so I hope it'll work for the new engine.

My clutches are only 2 years old and are the newer style that takes a 1" belt, which is why I decided to get a taper adapter instead of the comet clutch.

Any other tips would be appreciated.

[yamahag1cart]

Sounds cool!

I think you have just about everything covered and would guess you'll need a little flex pipe for your DS muffler. I'd doubt they line up. Also highly recommend running the stock air filter as long as there are no clearance issues. Your clutches are fine to re-use.

Not sure about your electric fuel pump, but it could work? I read tons of posts about people having fuel delivery issues, mostly with pulse driven pumps tho..
You'll run into a few things here and there, but to us that is part of the fun!

Good luck with the swap. You'll notice a HUGE difference in torque FYI!

If you ever want to really take it up a notch there is a ton of info on here about hopping these big block clones up!

[raydhd]

I would have added HD valve springs, moly push rods, and shaft rockers from Vegascarts while I was at it. The upper valve train is the weak spot on the clones. All 3 items come to $66 and make for a bullet proof valve train.

[yamahag1cart]

Good call Ray! I certainly plan on doing those once the gov comes off my 440.

[BuggieMaverick]

I plan on trying to keep the engine governor so I'm hoping the factory engine components are good enough. This is a golf cart used by various family members so I'm not looking for a large speed increase. I'm going to keep the pedal start and micro kill switch wiring for that reason.

I've done some prep work by sealing the engine's factory air filter housing with plastic and RTV. The air filter will still be replaceable. I will drill a large hole in the side of it and epoxy a PVC pipe fitting to it. That way I can hook up the factory air intake hose to it and hopefully make the cart's factory choke snuffer useable.

I may take pictures along the way to show how I end up hooking up stuff. I'm hoping to get the swap done within a week.

[jckrall]

i'm in the middle of doing this exact swap only in an 85. few things i noticed was the way the governor works you need to make a bracket to pull the butterfly for the carb the other way otherwise it will almost not start without the choke. I had to get a much longer starter gen belt from what came with the kit from vegas carts. looking forward to pictures from your project for ideas.

[BuggieMaverick]

I'm stuck until more parts arrive. My plan to use the stock clone air filter housing won't work so I had to order the performance style. I also had clearance issues with the black control box, so I need the relocation kit. Finally, I discovered my factory throttle cable was frayed, so I'll go with the long cable kit since I need a new throttle cable anyway.

I'm afraid my custom swap is just going to be a fairly common Vegas Carts type swap.

My starter generator belt is also too short. What size did you end up using?

[jckrall]

I ended up trying about six different starter gen belts from the parts store until i got one that fit. Mine was a half inch by i think close to 40". Problem i had was when the secondary clutch engaged it would hit the starter gen housing.

[sho305]

The new lifan have ut2 rev limit anyway. The engine governor can be a problem, its better to stick with the cart governor if you can. Engine governor makes starting harder, response is not the best either, and you don't really need it if its ut2 it will cut out about the same speed the stock engine ran with the governor set all the way up. If you run the stock trans governor you can control speed the way it always did. 420 will have near twice the power though, but stock the speed is about the same you just get there faster. You can put just the HD springs in it and rev more, but stock ut2 you will not get that high. The shaft rockers are nice and quieter I heard, for low price they are nice setup. You can get a different ut2 coil with no limiter if you want but last check they are $70 or so.

[BuggieMaverick]

The swap is complete with just some tweaks left. I didn't know if the UT2 ignition governor was smooth or not, or if it would dump too much unburnt fuel in the exhaust. I used the engine's cable brackets to keep the engine's standard governor.

I also didn't use the throttle box lowering kit. It turns out that it doesn't play nice with stock height carts, or at least not my cart.

I was able to reuse the stock muffler. I have one minor exhaust leak because I had to improvise an adapter, but the correct adapter is one its way. For reference, the stock muffler has an intake pipe OD diameter of 1-3/8", while the VC exhaust header is 1-1/4".

I was able to use a 36" starter generator belt but I had to cut down the Vegas Cart's threaded rod a couple of inches.

The biggest issue is finding the right size drive belt. I used VC's drive belt but it puts the engine very far forward. It's so far forward that the engine's drain plugs aren't over the engine mount cutouts and I can't see the carb adjustment screws. The factory drive belt is too short, so I need something in the middle. That would be a 40" belt (plus or minus an inch). That seems to be impossible to find, so I may try an EZ GO 1-1/8" belt.

I've been driving around a lot even with the exhaust leak and drive belt issue. I'm at 16 to 17 mph with the engine being governed at 3,600 rpm's. The extra power and not hearing a rod knock are very nice changes. I might play around to see if I like UT2 governor better since the throttle does seem a bit delayed and the standard governor isn't always smooth over bumps.

One thing I learned from this is that I think Club Car had several production changes on the early carts. Things that should fit don't, and issues I've ran into seem unique compared to what found searching this site.