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For a different perspective.
http://sports.espn.go.com/rpm/columns/story?seriesId=1&id=2385343For many manufacturers, the only significant difference between a SA and a K is the fireproofing. Although the Simpson Speedway Shark and the Kark Shark used a different shell material also. The M helmets have different requirements for eye opening to provide a bit more vision. If you have a choice, the M would be a better choice for karting.
Many national organizations have dropped the 95 series helmets. Usually it works like this, the only helmet certifications that are legal are the last two. So if you have a K98 or K2005, you should be good. Same goes for the M and SA, 2000 or newer will be accepted every where. Some club series do allow the 95 but I wouldn’t buy one new. It won’t be long and they too will be too old.
If your going to buy new, get the newest certification you can afford. There are many good helmets in the $250 to $500 price range. Cheaper helmets usually weigh more and have poor material in the liner that just doesn’t hold up. At 3g’s, every ounce of weight feels like a ton! Over the years we have had Simpson, Bell, Beiffe and Arai. At speed, the helmets that have aero devices do help you keep your head still, much less wind buffetting. Our current helmets are Simpson Kart Shark and a Bieffe F1.
I want to see a new helmet that is just coming out by Throttle Racing Products. The carbon/kevlar construction should make for a very light helmet and it is kart specific K2005. If you can believe the specs, it should be very good and it’s priced right. Check it out here.
http://www.throttleracingproducts.com/home.html
I haven’t seen one yet.The pdf for the Rotax does state the #40 slide. However, section 2.2.?? on carbs states that the slide is part of jetting and that jetting is open. TagUSA rules state specifically that the slide is part of jetting, jetting is open but that the slide assembly must be OEM (Dell’orto).
I’ve specifically talked with Marty Casey, national tech director for TagUSA, on this issue. He tells me that section 2.2.?? overrides the pdf sheet from Rotax. As long as we run the standard Dell’orto VHSB, we can change all the internals we want with standard Dell’orto parts.
The same issue on rads and airboxes. The pdf talks about the standard rad and airbox, however, the body of the TaGUSA rules let us run any rad or airbox we want. Again, the writen rules overrides the pdf from Rotax.
Our CSC tech director should give Marty a call if he needs a calification on this.
Adrian took third. We talked with him tonight and he’s really excited. It was a very good season start for him. Ya did good kid!
Adrian’s no dummy, look whos got the trophy girl!
Adrian called Greg yesterday to tell us what happened in qualifying. They broke the drivers into two groups. Adrian was in the second group. As you may know, at these events, they run strictly on the clock. In group one near the end of their session, there was a red flag. That meant that the second group lost the first 10 minutes of their session.
Adrian got in only two laps before another kid stuffed it in the wall and they lost another 10 minutes. Unlike our go karts, these cars need several laps to warm up tires and such. While they kept the tire warmers on during the wait, the car was not up to temp when they released them and Adrian only got in another two laps before the session was called. Still, he was the fastest in his group. He knows there is much more in the car than it showed in qualifying and he is confident that he will move past several of the guys in front of him. As Adrian told Greg, this will just make the race more interesting!
Adrian ended up in 7th in qualifying. The race for all the marbles is tomorrow. The race will be on SpeedTV, April 9th at 4:00pm eastern.
Garett
While it’s true Honda is back ordered on cylinders, there are still plenty of them out there in the supply chain. There has been a bit of hoarding going on but I made some calls last week and found both kits and cylinders. The sources right now that don’t have any are the ones that don’t normally stock them like Service Honda. They just order from Honda as they sell them.
I have not talked directly with Honda, but I’ve been told that there are plenty of cylinders on the boat heading over here. According to Marty Casey who has talked directly with Honda, they have something like 700 cylinders on the way over right now. So I’m not at all concerned about it.
The bigger question is, do we sacrifice the long term stability of the class because of a short term shortage of parts? If we don’t make the right decisions now, we screw up the class forever! I’m not willing to damage the long term stability of the class because of a two month shortage of parts. Am I the only one who thinks this is shortsighted?
I actually view this temperary shortage as a good thing. First, it means we are selling karts and people are moving into the sport. Its about time sales were going upwards. Secondly, we have an impact on Honda and believe me, they are paying attention. Honda fills the supply chain based on past sales. With lots of sales, that means they will fill the supply chain. So maybe we hurt for a month of two. That’s better than making a mistake that hurts the long term stability of the class.
However, I do understand the pressures to open it up. But that’s so typical of karting and Americans in general. “I want it right now, screw tomorrow.” I’m much more worrried about next year, not this week.
Some food for thought. Not a single road race organization in the country allows the 2001. Ask yourself a simple question, if they are the same, why not?
Jim
You bring up a couple of good points, particulary around “legacy” cases and why we should or should not allow them. Why 10#?
The reason to allow legacy cases is based on the idea that old motos will come out of the garages to play if they can put the stock stuff back on the top side. This argument has some validity for in those areas that have tried it, it did result in a few more entires. I have had customers here locally express just such interest. So I do think that allowing legacy cases will result in a few more entires.
This leads to the next big question, will they have an advantage and do we need to handicap them with weight? Will guys alter new cases if there is an advantage?
Old cases will usually be altered in the following ways. The intake track will opened up to accomdate the larger read cages we used to use. By using the stock reed cage, this may well be a disadvantage as the intake track will be too large. In a 2 cycle engine, intake and exhaust track volumns are very importiant in power development. Bigger is not always better. It’s the matching that’s important. The altered cases were matched for a larger reeed cage, not a smaller one. Bottom line, this alteration shouldn’t be an advantage, maybe a disadvantage.
The second place is lineboring of the crank bearings. The reason we have to linebore the cases is mainly due to the welding done to remove the kick start boss. This improves power but very slightly. Slight advantage to the legacy cases here.
The third are is the blending and porting of the transfer ports. When the ported top end was bolted to the ported bottom end, big power gains. However, bolting a stock top end to a ported bottom end will really hurt power. Now the port will have a wall or step in the flow path and it will really create turbulance. A modified bottom end and a stock top end should be worse than all stock parts. This should be a big disadvantage to the legacy cases.
It is impossible to predict exactlly how legacy cases will actually perform relative to the new stockers. Legacy cases were all modified so differently, exact comparisons are difficult at best. We have to go on our experience and our gut feelings on this one.
Where did the 10# come from. Out of thin air. But it is two fold in its reasoning. First, perception is that altered cases MIGHT be an advantage so we have to handicap them some how. and secondly, would a guy alter new cases if there was NO penality.
This brings us back to tech. How do we control this? First, the racer should register his legacy cases at the start of the season. They do have a serial number If a racer who is found to have altered cases who did NOT register them, they should be bounced for the season. Put in a penality with teeth.
Secondly, term limit them. Personally, I think one year is enough although others advocate 2 years. Let them in for one year only. If racer know up front we are just letting them in for the first year to build the class, they will know that down the road they have to bring the engine into compliance. The first year they buy a new cylinder, head, reed cage, intake manifold and ignition. (They may have the reed cage, ignition and manifold already, just not using them.) The second year, new cases. They know up front the costs. But at least we get them racing again. Lets be up front about this, not whack them on the back side.
The idea of calling the stock Honda was never a good idea. The only stock Honda is one taken from a motorcycle and it dosen’t have all the “right” parts (6 speed gear box). Almost every Honda engine found on a kart did not come from Honda motorcyle company, it came from Honda Motorcyle PARTS company. When you buy a stock Honda from Honda, it is actually a box full of parts. Somebody has to assemble it and that somebody is NOT an employee of Honda Motorcyle company. Just that fact alone opens up variables. Who would do a better job, a kid in a motorcyle shop or a Paul Leary? Pipes and silencers do not come from Honda, nor the carburator. So how can we call it “stock” when critical parts do not come from Honda?
If we go back to the origins of the class, it was orginally called spec Honda by Alex Baron and JR Clasen. The concept is not new, they did this 6 years ago. We just forgot.
This is where the rules devleoped by Dave Larsen are so good. We have dimensions to tech, we have tools to tech with. The rules are so tight that you really can’t do anything to the motor other than adjust timing. If we follow these rules, a guy can put together a kit using just the parts from the kit, it will be legal and develop max hp.
There are only two places he can “gain” power. First, do a good job on the power valve plugs. A racer should employ a builder with experience for this job. Second, adjust the timing. There is one more thing to do. It doesn’t gain power but it makes it eaiser to take the thing apart. Polish the crank journals. That’s it, no facey tuning, no expensive builder, just hours of good clean fun!
As far as a tuning guide, such a thing exists. http://www.kartweb.com has extensive tuning tips and guides available free to all who want them. There is a complete listing of the companies supporting the class to get all the parts they need.
The best thing to tell a customer is, buy the standard 1999 kart motor kit from one of Honda’s thousands of outlets. Pay a few bucks to have a professional put it together. Most quality builders charge around $250 bucks to do it. If you want to go the extra step, spend another $350 to have them dyno tune the timing. If they do that, they will be getting the maximun legal hp, their motor will be legal just about everywhere in the country.
History lessons are for those who are fairly recent to the sport. There is an old adage, “Those who don’t understand history are doomed to repeat past mistakes.” or something like that. I try to point out the past so that we don’t continue to make the same mistakes over and over again.
Moto died when we let the rules get out of control, costs escalated and racers dropped out or moved to other forms of motorsports. ICC’s have followed the same rocky road. It now costs $6,000 for a blessed motor, they don’t last very long and people are dropping out. Sales of built ICCs have dropped to almost nothing. I talked with one of the major importers of ICC engines in Florida and he told me he had only sold 3 engines so far this year. I’ve sold over 4 dozen CR-125 motor mounts so far this year and I’m not the big seller of mounts in the country. They are all going on stockers. I think that small fact should be of interest to track owners, rules makers and promotors of our sport. It is screaming at you, telling you where the market is heading.
On the dyno, the 2001 has a bit more hp. The overall number varies from dyno to dyno but the difference is around a pony, maybe a bit less. In the grand scheme of things, thats no much. But its far more important as to where the power is and the hp curve. The 2001 has better over rev and a flatter top hp. The 1999 has more bottom end and mid range. The 1999 should be stronger on tracks that require better acceleration where the 2001 should do better on more open tracks where over rev and a flat curve of peak hp will be an advantage. So as the class grows and becomes more competitive, some racers will use a 1999 top and ignition for acceleration tracks and 2001 on open fast tracks.
As we have found in dynoing Tag engines, total hp is not nearly the whole story. The power curve is what’s important. If you look at the original work SKUSA did with Tag, they dynoed every engine and set weights based on dyno runs. As we found, there isn’t a single set of “magic” weights that works well at every track. Every engine develops the power differently, even if they all develop the same TOTAL power. And it gives one an advantage over the other.
Spec Honda is no different. While the over all power is not significantly different, the power curve is signficantly different. One will and does have the advantage over the other in certain circumstances. This very fact will hurt the class. The entire point is why go down this road unless we have a compelling reason to go!
The primary reasons for this class are as follows.
1. Level playing field
2. Lower costs
3. Easy and controllable techAdding the 2001 cylinder does not level the playing field. In fact, it does just the opposite.
It does not lower costs for its more expensive to put a 2001 together. It also opens up the possible need for multiple top end/ignition combinations depending on track conditions. Potentially more expensive.
For a varity of reasons, the 2001 is harder to tech. Certain dimensions, particularly port height, are far more open and variable than on the 1999. Since the ignition is so critical to the power curve, opening up the ignition to multiple years that are not compatable across the years means you lose control of one of the most important aspects of the engines. As I stated earlier, limiting it to just the 1999, we have easy and fair ways to control the CDI boxes.
You want loopholes, here they are. You can’t tech a 2001 for port height alteration. Since they are as cast, they vary. A sharp builder could alter the height and you can’t tech for it. The 1999 is machined and doesn’t vary more than .003″ Alter it, you can be easily nailed.
Just using a cc head volumn is not enough. I can open up the ring gap so that more oil flows out through the ring gap while you are filling the head with oil giving a false reading. Plus, many tech guys don’t even know how to use a burrette.
With out profile tools, you can not detect an altered head. No such tools exist for the 2001 nor is there any interest in developing them.
Ignitions are almost impossible to tech yet they have tremendous inpact on power production. Things like stators, coils and CDI do not interchange across years. The best and easiest way to control ingnitions is to perform grid swaps of CDIs. If you have multiple years and multiple combinations, you take this very powerful tool away from the tech guys. You might as well just open up ignitions. But then for those who don’t know history, we already been down that road and it didn’t work.
I given you the facts on power, explained the reasons for the differences, showed several loopholes and given what I think are factual reasons, based on both past experiences and logic as to why we don’t what to open it up to multiple years.
Does the 2001 make more power, the short answer is yes but its not much. More importantly, it develops the power differently and in different parts of the curve. Its mainly the ignition. The curve is such that the top is flatter with more over rev. And you can’t just mandate the 1999 ignition. The 2001 cylinder has the advantage because the 2001 ignition was developed for its port timing. With two quality drivers with equal chassis, the 2001 will be the winner everytime. The more open the track, the more the 2001 has the upper hand.
To make matters worse, you can’t actually buy a 2001 kit engine with a 6 speed box. You have to buy a 1999 and have them swap you parts. Or you buy it from the one and only engine builder in the country who is pushing the 2001 option. It’s really that simple.
The thing is this whole thing is so unneccessary. For a class to grow as this one has the potential, the more spec the better. The fewer options the better. Like Rotax and other spec classes, there is a very strong attraction for them. The tighter the rules and the more developed the tech preocedures, the more likely this class will become the class that will move shifter racing back to the forefront. I have no interest in a class that means you put a 2001 top on for long tracks and a 1999 for short tracks. How stupid is that? How does this help control costs? Isn’t cost control one of the central points of the stock moto class? Why screw that up?
Have we learned nothing in the last 10 years? Five years ago shifter racing was huge. We would get 150 shifters to a single PMT. We had LCQs for most classes! The SuperNats used to draw 350 racers for 5 classes, now it can’t draw that many with 10! There was a license structure that you had to earn your way to the top. It took 3 years for a racer to attain the top level. But it all fell apart when we let the rules get out of control. There were too many options and the costs got absolutely silly. It cost $6,000 for a blessed moto package and they blew up with regularity. Kind of like ICCs now! If you look back over the last 20 years of karting, the classes that have grown and flourished have all been very tightly controlled. That is why Yamaha based single speed karts are still the most popular sprint 2 cycle karts going. And they have changed very little and every dimension is tightly controlled. Spec honda should be the same, very limited options, very tightly controlled.
Actually, if you have been reading Dave’s rules and been involved as I have in their development, you will notice that the basics have not changed at all. There is nothing that is now allowed that wasn’t allowed 6 weeks ago when we started. What has changed is that Dave has added dimensions and tech procedures. What good is a rule if you can’t tech it? Every word has been gone over and over to look for and stop every possbile chance for a builder to screw this class up. The rules are very solid now. At least 10 different builders and tech personal around the country have gone over them to find and plug every possible loophole.
The bottom line is this, outside of PKC, there is NO support for the 2001 cylinder. Not a single series in the entire country that has a stock moto class allows the 2001. The only place to allow the 2001 is PKC. If a guy builds a 1999, he can race everywhere. If he has a 2001, he can only race in So-Cal. And don’t think for one second that racers don’t look for holes. In Florida, they dq’ed a guys at both Homestead and Moroso. After the dq’s, several guys dropped out for they knew they wouldn’t pass.
What maybe hard for some to understand is how much fun it is to race in a class where the motor is not the reason you win or lose. When we were in Florida, the Rotax senior class had over 46 drivers in Homestead. 46 karts with equal motors. Do you have any idea how hard it is to pass when you don’t have a hp advantage? You actually have to drive the kart! Whats more cool is that no matter who builds the engine, not matter how much money you spend, the engine you buy from Rotax has just as much power.
Spec Honda has every bit as much potential. Shifter engines that all have equal power, cost less than $3,500 complete and last all season. The class could become huge. Opening up to more options just rachets up the costs and makes the engines less equal. This goes againest the very reason for having the class in the first place. We did this before and it didn’t work. Why do we have to do it again?
