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Jason
Moto engines for all SKUSA classes the rod and flywheels are stock, OEM, no modifications. Some builders take the stock asembly, directly from Honda as it is assembled and put it in the engine. Some builders use a press to slightly widen the flywheels to give a bit more side clearance to the rod and then polish flywheel bearing surfaces ( the shafts that go into the crank bearings) for a slip fit in the bearings. They do not touch the rod bearing surfaces for giving them more clearance will result in things you don’t want. 😥
In your case, I would buy a crank kit from Honda (they come pre-assembled) and cost less than $120 from several different sources. I would install it with no modifications and go have fun. It’s cheap, reliable, and the power difference between a crank that is blueprinted like I suggest and a stock one is impreceptable to a driver of S2 abilities. Don’t waste your money. Spend the $$ you save on track time. The track time will pay off in the long run far more than any blueprinting you do to the crank.
Charles is right, $400 is the going price, you do have to buy the whole clutch and there isn’t a legal fix. The plate sort of works but many are still breaking pins. Most of the guys breaking pins are masters, not internationals. Most of suspect wieght is the culprit.
We will be having a replacement pin avaiable soon but it will not be legal for either Tag or RMax. But it will give you a clutch you can use on practice days or at club races who don’t care that you replaced the pin.
SKUSA rules state that the crank and rod must be OEM, no mods. There’s no such thing as a Swedetech bottom end, legal anyways. The only thing any the builder can do is align the crank and give it a bit more side clearance. They can also polish the bearing races. About 30 minutes of work.
Rich
While we all have our excuses for not racing, (mine was we went testing Saturday and Sunday we went hiking) the trend is downward all across the country. Sales of new karts, in general, is off with shifters taking the biggest hit. I attribute the downward trend to three things.
1. The economy is not as good as some (politions) would have us believe. With gasoline well over $2.00, a lot of folks just don’t have the disposable income to go play.
2. Karting in general is too expensive. Built ICC engines cost as much as the entire kart and engine did just 5 years ago. Paying $180+ for an axle with XYZ brand name on it is just nuts. The core karting racer has a beer budget, and not the good stuff either!
3. Too many classes and too much uncertainty in the rules. Every year, we add classes, not take them away. We should remove one class every year for the next 3-4 years and no new ones. Rules should be fixed for a period of three years. Changes should be exceptions and rare, rather than the norm.
Rich
Finding a date is problematic, there is a lot of stuff going on in karting this fall. But Steamboat is in August this year. The PPIR event has some issues which I’m sure they will solve and the event will go on. The RMax grands do take up a lot of time and money. I know that is why many Rotaxians in the state are not doing them and that is also why they are not doing the RMax Challenge races. The Nations Cup is one we clearly can’t step on, so you are right, it does limit options.
Since there is so much racing going on, that is one reason I am leaning more toward the informal type of race. No new tires certainly helps cut costs.
Hey, I tried to get in one last year but by the time I got to the grid, there was already an ass in every kart! (I meant to say butt, sorry, my bad)
Grades are a tough one. How hard to push? On the one hand, getting a C+ in most public schools today requires little more than showing up and turning in some of minimal effort on the home work. So from that stand point, just about any kid with a pulse should be able to get a C in high school.
On the other hand, if a kid is self motivated, they can obtain unbelivable heights. I’ve seen it first hand in my own kids. They also can have very different motivations to attain very different goals. And sometimes, those goals are at odds with “good” grades. The tough choice for the parent is will those goals do the kid right in the long run.
For example, my eldest was a straight A in high school and highly recruited by major universities all across the country. The kid worked his butt of for it and got every thing he deserved. He’s now enjoying the fruits of that labor. I firmly believe that any kid with average intelligence can attain what he has attained, if they want to bad enough. But the bigger question is, can you force a kid to attain that level. In some ways, I think that is a bit like pushing a rope uphill.
The younger one strugles through the basic classes. Yet in music, its straight A. Its not because of any intellegence failings, rather is a pursut of different goals. Do I as a parent beat him down on the world history grade when its the music that lights his rockets? I think its our job as parents to help the kid develop goals and give them the tools they need to attain those goals. We then have to sit back, watch and hope they chose wisely.
Donal,
Our lose is Gremany’s gain. Jeff and Greg really enjoyed racing you. You are a true gentleman both on and off the track and the sport needs more like you. Good luck and I hope we get to see you again at some race track in the near future.
When we have motors of variying horsepower, weight can be used as an effective method to help balance the packages. We see it it many forms of racing, not just karts. World challenge for example uses weight to help balance the competition. In World Challenge, if you win, next time out you are carring more weight.
Jim brings up a good point, how much does weight really impact the performance. I can give a little insite Recently Greg was asked to test drive a customer’s karts where he works. Greg was almost 2 seconds faster than the customer. The customer said it was because he weighed 35# more than Greg. So they added 35# to the kart (including the ankle weights Greg wore) and it slowed him only .2 to .3 of a second. So the weight clearly had an impact but not as much as some people may think.
The must larger impact on performance is how the engine delivers the power and what are the requirements of the track. IMI is a very unusual track. It is long and has no slow corners. In our kart, neither of the boys hardly touch the brakes. They only use the brakes twice or three times, depending on the direction of the track. And then it’s not really to slow the kart, but to set the kart for the corner.
The Rotax has a limited power band. It has nothing below 7,000 and nothing over 12,800. But in that range, it is very strong. It has better mid range than any of the engines. At a track like IMI, we can run our engine between 8,500 and 12,500. At a track like that, the Rotax will be king. It is no surpise to me that Rotax owned the front row in senior. Combine good drivers with a engine package well suited for the track, what else would you suspect.
The Sonic has a range from around 7,00-8,000 to over 17,000. That is a usable power band of almsot 10,000 rpm. The usable power band of the Rotax is roughly 5,500. If the track requires a wider power band, who do you think is going to dominate?
At New Castle, it is just the opposite. That track has three very slow corners. We were out of gear 3/4 of the way down the straight yet we were at or below 6,000 of the slow corners. The Sonics were 1 to 1.5 seconds quicker. It wasn’t any where near close. If I was going to race at New Castle, I certainly wouldn’t take a Rotax or any other motor at the current weights. We were able to match the Leopards there (we beat all but one), but neither of us could come anywhere near the Sonics. New Castle is more the norm in tracks in that it has slow corners and fast straights. At Bandimere, the Sonics should have a clear advantage, at CRE, the Sonics should crush. At Grand Junction, it will be a bit more balanced, but a quality driver with a good chassis should dominate on one of the eight port designs. At Steamboat Springs, the straights are not that long so it should be a little more even.
The biggest problem is the basic design of the engines. We have motors that are 8 port designs that a little more than punched out ICA engines with starters and we have motors that are designed for recreational purposes, like the Leopard and the Rotax. For purposes of this discussion, the Biland is more like the Rotax and Leopard than the 8 port engines. As long as Tag allows such disparete designs to compete together, one motor will always have an advantage at some track. The challenge for TaGUSA is to find a balance for most tracks in the country. Most tracks are more like New Castle than IMI.
My concern has never been with my own team but for the sport as a whole. Since we are not running any series for points, I really could care less how well we do overall. We race simply for the joy of racing and to do the best we can. Our over riding goal is to have a safe and fun weekend.
But I am very concerned about the direction of our sport. Tag has been sold as a low cost, bolt the engine on your kart and go out and play. When any engine dominates, it’s bad for the sport and it’s bad for TaG. Some of the engines are not low maintenance. Of allthe TAg einges at New Castle, only the Sonic failed. If one of the low maintenance engines dominates, it will kill TAG. What the importers and the manufacturers have to realize, if they want to be successful in TaG, they must make their engines easy to maintain, easy to tune and last a long time. They will “win” in the market place with customer service, not on the track for Tag USA will make sure no engine dominates by adjusting weight, mid season if they have to. That is the entire premeise of TAG. We all knew that TaG USA could and would adjust weights during the year. Now when they are doing what they said they would do, some of us don’t like it.
Personally, I would rather have seen TaG USA take a bit more ballanced approach to the weight issue. By that, I mean take weight out of the slower karts and add weight to the higher hp karts. I think that makes a bit more sense for a kart owner.
The last thing and it was the reason for my earlier post, is a simple question. Are we going to follow a national set of rules or are we not? If we say we are, then we have to follow them regardless of where they lead.
From the SKUSA website, posted 1/27/05.
“As a matter of rule, we will follow TAG USA 100% for this year on all matters concerning engine rules.”
This race was a fun one to watch. Charles hounded Lee until Lee’s kart started to fall off (or did Lee just get tired 😆 , after all, this is the “old” guys class) Thanks guys for the great show!
Sorry to see you guys go Rich. But that’s the way it is in karting. The only person still racing regularly here in Colorado who was racing when we started is A.J. Noud! We are on our forth or fifth set of racing friends! I will miss your calls to BS about karting. Good luck but you got the right idea. You got to let the kids decide what they want to do. If they aren’t having fun, whats the point?
When we first started racing masny years ago, we purchased chassis that were at least 10 years old. I went through the karts like you are suggesting and we won the IMI track championship that year. So to answer your question, yes you can be competitve with an older chassis.
If you do get an older kart, take a good look at the underside of it. Look at the tubes for flat spoting. A little flat spoting of the tubes is ok, but severe wear creates a weak spot that really screws up the handling of the kart.
Once you determine that the chassis is ok to use, completly dissasemble it and check it for squarness. You most likely find that it is tweaked at bit and you can straighten it. You may want to repaint the frame at the same time.
As you are putting it back together, use all new bolts and nuts. Changing out the brake system is a good idea as older karts systems are usually completely worn out and are not safe. Carefully check each used part you use for cracks or other signs of fatigue. Replace them if in question.
Once back together, your kart should be good as new.While the kart is back together and compettive, you should remember that many of the racers in the Tag classes are very experienced drivers. Some of these guys are rocketships tied to the ground! It is very hard to bring a driver’s skills up to the level of a driver who has been at this for years. Even a driver with 2 years experience is often not on the same level as a driver with 10 years under his/her butt! Karting, like any motor sport is a sport that requires experience.
@blink wrote:
Bring your EasyKart to the next CSC race and see how you do against the Biland, Leopards, Sonics and the other TAGS.
I get a kick out of these “my karts faster than your’s” type of arguments. They make for great fun and done in the proper light, they can build excitment and participation.
But for the record, a KGB with a Rotax is the fast kart at IMI. According to the times that are posted on this site, no other combination has come close to the times this particular combination (kart/motor/driver) has put down. The time to shoot for boys and girls is 53.7. This year, the times should be about the same, maybe just a bit faster as we have to run 10# more weight but the MG tires are a bit quicker than the ‘stones we ran last year.
Lets settle this at the track.
