Anyone using an airplane or jet throttle?

May have to save this idea for a different project, but I was wondering if anyone is or has used an airplane throttle in their hot rod? It would be awkward at first but I'm sure you would get used to it and it would look cool if your going with an aircraft theme.

Also, same applies to using a motorcycle throttle??? Just thinking outside the box...

kelseydum said:

May have to save this idea for a different project, but I was wondering if anyone is or has used an airplane throttle in their hot rod? It would be awkward at first but I'm sure you would get used to it and it would look cool if your going with an aircraft theme.

Also, same applies to using a motorcycle throttle??? Just thinking outside the box...

Click to expand...

An airplane hand throttle would be interesting!

I have also wandered outside that box and wondered why you couldn't actually use motorcycle handlebars to drive a car. They make hand controls already, but seems like a bike setup should also work. Works on quads and jet skis ...

And if you had airplane controls you could steer with your feet. Then your hands would be free for the important stuff like texting and groping your girlfriend.[ddd. I would think you'd still want the hand throttle to return to idle when you let go.

I toyed with the idea of using a spare motorcycle throttle grip on my build. Was thinking of rigging it up on the shifter...just didn't happen! On the handle bar idea...it would probably work fine except the bars would have to be short. Tight turns would require more turning than a motorcycle would normally. None of mine would work heheh! I always had wide long horns, about 37" wide.

My Reo has a fairly uncomfortable gas pedal location. I was thinking of adding a hand controlled throttle to allow my gas pedal foot some relief. Just another lever next to the shifter.

Willowbilly3 said:

And if you had airplane controls you could steer with your feet. Then your hands would be free for the important stuff like texting and groping your girlfriend.[ddd. I would think you'd still want the hand throttle to return to idle when you let go.

Click to expand...

I figure with a little engineering anything is possible. I remember using contrls on the steering wheel to accelerate back in drivers-Ed...(I got to play around a bit because I was in a car by myself, lol). It was a handicap feature.

Hell, you could even fab something up for a custom one off. It's just a cable hooked to the throttle. We used to have a pull wire behind our head on the go karts we used to build when we were kids (and no brakes, haha).

Cruise Control

bob w said:

My Reo has a fairly uncomfortable gas pedal location. I was thinking of adding a hand controlled throttle to allow my gas pedal foot some relief. Just another lever next to the shifter.

Click to expand...

After market, works great if you take long trips in your rat [S

Airplane throttles have thumb wheel locks...

you pull it out to accelerate and then lock the thumb wheel to maintain throttle position..not sure that would work as you might not remember to loosen the thumb wheel if you tried to decelerate...could be very interesting....
there used to be a JC Whitney set up that used a slide on the throttle cable and you'd push down on the gas pedal and set the unit and it would hold the throttle at that position....then it also had a brake release so that when you touched the brake it released the lock on the unit...it was just a cable going from the box that was mounted under the dash...to the throttle cable....I would guess that you could do something similar with a solenoid to pull the cable....and have a brake switch that opened the circuit if you hit the brake...anyway....

I always wanted to hook up a motorcycle clutch handle on the shifter, but after a discussion on here a couple of years ago found out it couldn't be done. Sure would have been nice for those of us who don't have much room for 3 pedals.

My 1947 Chevy Fleetmaster 4 dr sedan had a stock "Throttle" cable in the dash. You pulled it out and up went the RPM's. But they stayed there unless you pushed it back in. I always thought of it as an early version of cruise control.
Don't some states require a special permit to drive cars with hand controls? I know that when I had my leg chopped off my wife looked into it and mentioned something like that.
Torchie.

I don't know that I would put any one of a position lock on it unless I have some kind of a fail safe release ( wouldn't want that throttle stuck open for sure). I had a "buddy" snap that cheap plastic piece on some of the pedal assemblies out there and we had to use vise grips on the remaining frayed throttle cable so I was bent over working the throttle with my right hand down in the pedal area,,, hahaha... Good thing I'm flexible.

I think the motorcycle thing ?could? work but you may have to machine/engineer some sort of ratio adapter to account for the amount of throttle being pulled... But I may be wrong. Just spitballing here.

Thanks for the replies... Keep em coming!

sgtpontiac said:

you pull it out to accelerate and then lock the thumb wheel to maintain throttle position..not sure that would work as you might not remember to loosen the thumb wheel if you tried to decelerate...could be very interesting....
there used to be a JC Whitney set up that used a slide on the throttle cable and you'd push down on the gas pedal and set the unit and it would hold the throttle at that position....then it also had a brake release so that when you touched the brake it released the lock on the unit...it was just a cable going from the box that was mounted under the dash...to the throttle cable....I would guess that you could do something similar with a solenoid to pull the cable....and have a brake switch that opened the circuit if you hit the brake...anyway....

Click to expand...

On the old fire engine we had a big red button to smack to shut it off when a hose blow

still like cruise control best

Back in the 70's there was a guy that took two 10" steering wheels and mounted them with a gear box in place of the regular steering wheel.
The wheels where mounted 90 degrees to the steering column.
What about a hand paddle for the accelerator?


weld on..........[

Back in the sixties, Ed Roth (I think) built a roadster with hydraulic controls. One stick did everything.
Forward for go. Further forward for go faster.
Back for slow down. Back further for stop.
Right for right turns.
Left for left turns.

I thought it was the coolest thing I ever read in Hotrod. Or one of the car mags, anyway.

On our demo cars we use a pull rope for a small engine as a back up throttle just incase the pedal broke or things bend weird and don't allow acceleration. I've used mechanics wire, welding wire, hood release cables, and other stuff as well. We just made sure it had some type of bolt or something as a T handle.

It's a lot harder to drive like that then ya think. Your brain isn't "trained" for it.

You could consider a tractor style throttle lever attached to the column. They mostly use levers and rods on tractors but there would be the possibility of using cables with the levers.

^hahahaha... Good stuff. Being a custom artist, like big daddy, I get these Dum ideas in my head. I find it a personal challenge when someone says you CAN'T do this or that... Where there's a will there is a way.

If it were used as a secondary throttle instead of the primary, it would be kool lookin.

Skip said:

Back in the sixties, Ed Roth (I think) built a roadster with hydraulic controls. One stick did everything.
Forward for go. Further forward for go faster.
Back for slow down. Back further for stop.
Right for right turns.
Left for left turns.

I thought it was the coolest thing I ever read in Hotrod. Or one of the car mags, anyway.

Click to expand...

kelseydum said:

^hahahaha... Good stuff. Being a custom artist, like big daddy, I get these Dum ideas in my head. I find it a personal challenge when someone says you CAN'T do this or that... Where there's a will there is a way.

Click to expand...

That car was /is the Beatnik Bandit. A clone of this car is currently being built by Fritz Schenck a guy that has restored some of Ed's other creations.
Torchie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatnik_Bandit