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@Curt Kistler wrote:
But come on now, how many Shockwave, ……logos do you want us to look at?
You don’t see them near enough :cheers:
There had been talk of different Tag weights for different tracks. Is that thought still bouncing around?
Feel free to call us at the shop for advice. We are running stock moto this year and I can give you some pointers to help move you in the right direction.
I did talk with JB over the weekend and we are going to do an on track clinic at Action Karting this spring. I will be a followup to our seminar we did last week at the shop. It will include track time and assistance for setup and driving. The only cost will be Action Kartings normal fee for track test and tune time. It will include lead/follow type of driving for all classes. The on track instructor will be Greg Welch, and I will be doing the tuner portion. We will be anouncing the date once we get a chance to look over the calender.
If you are looking for more personalized training, Greg has been doing that for many of the junior drivers. He can be hired for 1/2 or full day sessions at the track of your choice. He is very reasonable but he makes all the arrangments himself. If you want to use him, give me a call at the shop and I will give you his cell number to contact him directly.
303-781-7829.
I got an idea, lets start bashing just for the heck of it! Pure speculation and facts never got in the way of a good rant. 😥
Joe
When he first got into a FWB kart several years ago, it was hard for him. It is for most drivers. And yes, Greg is good at trail braking. However, if you dial the fronts out a bit wth the bias, you can still have good straight line braking and also trail brake. I’ve seen him adjust it on the fly, remembering how many clicks in each direction so that he can have strong front in one corner and trail brake another.
Most young drivers who first try front brakes are actually slower with them. The reason, they over brake. You stop so quickly, its easy to stop too much. Just like turn in for a corner, you can easily over shoot it. Just having good brakes can also hurt for a bit. We recently put the Wilwood system on a kid who had been use to SKM brakes. The Wilwoods stop so much better, the kid was actually 2 seconds slower! The kid was acustomed to a mushy pedal.
It will take time to adjust and unless the driver has lots of experience, they will find it difficult going back and forth between the two setups. So like in your postion, if you plan on running RMax races, front brakes wil most likely be an advantage. But the CSC will mostly likely follow TagUSA rules and not allow them. On my karts, I will just change out the system to fit who ever rules we are following. A Brembo 4 wheel system for RMax, a Wilwood system for rears only.
Curt
In Florida, we ran front brakes as they run per RMax rules. Most racers did not but most of the front guys did. The way I look at it, they can’t be a disadvantage. After all, you can always dial out the fronts if you want to trail brake more. You even have the option of changing the bias while running.
We were having trouble getting our kart off the slow corners. So we geared it down a bit to give us a bit more snap. The gearing hurt us on the straights. However, underbraking, we could get most of it back. Nobody was able to out brake Greg going in to a corner. Given a choice, I would run FWB.
Kinda sucks that Rotax is allowing front brakes. It just adds $700 cost to the kart when its not really needed. Tag USA is not allowing them. On the other hand, I put front brakes on one of our karts for it is advantage. Or at least, not a disadvantage.
Detonation is caused by being too lean. That doesn’t mean the jetting was off, what it means is the engine didn’t get enough fuel. Maybe the fuel line got pinched and starved the engine, maybe the floats stuck and starved the engine, maybe dirt in the fuel blocked a hole in the carb or plugged the filter and starved the engine. No matter the cause, the end result was the engine got too lean and hand grenaded.
As far as reading plugs, did you give it a hot chop or did you just idle in? If you just idled in or let it idle at all, your plug would load up with fuel and you wouldn’t be able to accurately read the plug. It would suggest that it was fat when in fact it could be lean.
If you are going to read the plug, you have to do a hot chop. What that means is you rev it out to max and then shut it down with out idleing. Just coast back in. That way you can get an accurate reading. Better method is to remove the pipe an look in the exhaust port or use a bore scoop to read the top of the piston. Just looking a your piston photo, it is screaiming, I need more fuel.
What engine, what oil, what mix?
I want to thank everyone for coming today. It was great, over 60 people just for the seminar! We had many new racers, many of whom will be the Tag and stock moto classes.
Unfortuantly I didn’t get to say Hi to many old friends who came in. I saw many of you but since I was tied up, I didn’t get to say hi and thanks for coming to many of you. I appologize if I missed anyone and hope to see you all once the season gets going.
Thanks again for coming.
Heres what I posted back last fall.
http://www.thecoloradokarter.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=1719&start=0They do not blueprint them in the traditional sense of the word. By that I mean they are not machining them to tolerances like you would if you blueprinted a Briggs to “stock” specs. They can do things like true the crank and adjust the squish with base gaskets. I now most of those guys you mention, Speedsouth, CMW, and they are good people. At best they may be able to get another hp out of them when compared to one directly from Rotax.
All the rebuild work must be done by some one. In the case of Rotax, they have setup service centers who are authorized to rebuild them and re-seal them. The guys you mention are all certified service centers. SSC is taking a proactive approach to policing the service centers. Take a look at what they are doing in SoCal with the LAKC series. They are tearing them apart down there and SSC is puting them back together at no charge to the racer if they are legal. If not, they are going to discipline the service center. They know that some service centers a pushing the limits, particularly in the junior ranks, and they want to put a stop to it.
I’ve been to Rotax races whre they have broken the seals to check the engines. But where ever they have done that, they have had service centers on hand to re-seal them at no charge if they are legal. Where I have a problem with breaking the seals is when they don’t have a service center on hand to re-seal them. That costs the racer plenty to get it put back together.
Bill
They ran what SKUSA would call G1 (Expert masters) and G2 (Expert heavy) with stock moto. There was a total of 31 karts on the track at once. There were a couple of guys who were just nuts and managed to hit just about everything out there. We ended the first main with a bent steering column and a bent tie rod after a maasters drove over the front of us. (He was docked a position) However, after Chris penalized a couple and gave a tongue lashing to a couple more, they were much better behaved on Sunday. Greg finished 5th and 8th overall I think.
On Mylaps, Greg’s best times were close to the best times of the top Masters running built ICC packages. The rest of the non-cheating stockers (we had one “stock” moto with a 9cc head and a 40mm carb!) were about 1 to 2 seconds back from Greg. Based on the skill levels I saw, that seemed about right.
If we are looking for classes here to double up with, it could be interesting. In testing so far here at our tracks, Greg has already run within a half second of the best Pro times from the last CSC at Bandimere. At IMI, I think it will be about 1 second off. GJM should be about the same as IMI. (The reason in Florida we were 2+ seconds off the pro class can be traced to three things, much better tires on the Pros, lighter weight and the built motors. The tires alone were worth over 1 second.)
Since Pro and stock both run the same tire, the differences here will be less. Locally, as many of the pros can’t get within a second of the best local pros, Greg could run his stocker in the pro class and not get in anyone’s way. However, I think that most stockers will be off 1 to 2 seconds and that could be a problem in lapped traffic and a better fit maybe the heavy/old class. But since stock moto and heavy/old will most likely be two of the larger classes, it could be a problem combining them from a numbers standpoint. And nobody wants to run with the novices!
It all depends on numbers. The big question is, where will the guys who ran S1 and S2 last year go? If they keep the same engine packages, they will have to go Pro or Masters. Last year, by the time we got to the end of the season, there were only 5 pro’s and 5 S1s. If they all come back, that’s only 10 total if we combine them. At the same race, there were 10 masters and 7 S2. Where will the S2 guys go? Novice? Their engines fit Pro specs. Is novice going to be a run what-ya-brung type class? Do we run 4 seperate shifter groups? Seems a bit overkill to me.
I think we can all agree that novice should be by themselves. The Pro guys usually want to run by themselves. That means combining Masters and stockers. From a time standpoint, it could work, but if things go like it it appears they might, we could end up with 30+ karts on the track while the other two groups have less than 10. Not a good use of the very limited time we will have this year.
Curt
The failure was very weird. A piece of the piston, about 3/4 inch, came out just above the ring on the exhaust port side. It looked like it was cut out. The top of the dome had excellent color so it wasn’t running lean. There was no damage at all, not a scratch in the cylinder, port or head. It was like a chuck just dissapeared! I showed it to several moto engine builders and they all said it was really weird, never seen anything like it. Just my luck!
Tech was good and thorough. Don was ready to head for the bottom end as the other guy’s motor seemed to be just a bit too good. Head volumn is supposed to be 11cc. The other engine’s head was covered in oil after only 9cc went in! A little undersize. (Our’s was well over the 11cc limit.)
I’m making tools to check head profile and port height. Once made, a builder won’t be able to touch any of the surfaces without getting caught. We already have orders from all over asking for them. We had the prototypes in Florida, ready to go if needed. For Moroso, we’ll have the finished ones.
Just a quick reminder. This weekend is our open house complete with a chassis seminar, live machine demonstrations and just general bench racing.
The days events are as scheduled
10:00AM -12:00 PM Chassis seminar. While geared primarly for new and intermediate racers, racers of all levels can always learn more. I know I do.12:00PM to 2:00PM Live machine demonstrations. Ever wonder what a CNC machine looks like? Ever want to watch one run? This is your chance.
2:00PM-4:00PM Bench racing. This is your chance to talk with your friends about the coming season. Its never to early to get the trash talking going, all in good fun of course.
Hope to see you all there. Remember, we are 4435 West 58th Avenue, Unit E in Arvada. Call for directions if you need to. 303-781-7829
