Young Hot Rodders Build Chevrolet LS-Powered Go Kart: Video

September 17, 2020 6:46 am

Holley LS Fest serves as a celebration of all things powered by the venerable General Motors Small Block V8 engine. As such, the show usually attracts some fairly ridiculous custom LS swap builds – from Chevrolet V8-powered Austin Minis to supercharged V8 drift cars and everything in between.

This custom-built Chevrolet V8-powered go-kart has to be one of the more absurd builds we’ve seen showcased at LS Fest, however. The rather ridiculous creation was put together by young hot rodders Joseph Blum and Travis Flannery of Ripley, Ohio for this year’s LS Fest East event. The pair were inspired to create their own V8-powered go-kart after seeing one at LS Fest in 2019, but theirs looks like a fairly big improvement over the one that inspired them. While that kart was based on a tiny racing kart frame, Joseph and Travis instead decided to use a larger off-road buggy-style kart as the basis for their project, which has more room to work with and, perhaps more importantly, actual coilover rear suspension with travel.

While this Chevrolet V8-powered go-kart probably can’t be thrashed too hard without spinning out or rolling over, we have to respect these young enthusiast’s passion and, even more so, their fabrication skill. The entire kart from the cab rearward had to be custom fabricated, with the two even making their own wiring harness for the engine. They didn’t give up when things got hard, either. When the centrifugal drum clutch that came on the kart started slipping due to the weight of the vehicle with two people in it, they converted it to a belt drive system to solve the problem. And don’t think they skimmed over the finer details – it even has two rooftop fans for air conditioning and a radio.

Joseph and Travis know a lot more about their wild Chevrolet V8-powered go-kart than we do, so hear what else they have to say about it in the video embedded below.