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| July 02, 2009 News |
| EKN Reader Files: Scott Heavin - Sampling the 2009 IAME Parilla Leopard |
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 | Scott Heavin is a regular club racer and karting supporter at the New Castle Motorsports Park
(Photo: S. Heavin) |
The following article is from eKartingNews.com Forum member Scott Heavin. The New Castle, Indiana resident is a regular club member at the near by New Castle Motorsports Park, competing in the track’s KRA Series in the TaG Sportsman division. Heavin is a fan of karting and motorsports in general and was gracious enough to publish the following regarding the IAME ’09 Parilla Leopard engine.
A couple of months ago, I had joked on the EKN Forum about IAME sending me a ’09 Leopard to test, because I had had so many reliability issues with the pre-2009 model. Jim Russell Jr. of Russell Karting then posted that he would send me one to test. I chuckled and assumed he was just joking. After spending the day at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for Carb Day, I stopped back in my office to see if I had missed anything while playing hooky. Sitting on my desk is a big box with the Russell Karting tape on it. "Hmmm..I hadn’t ordered anything", I thought to myself. I opened it up and it was an ’09 Leopard! Now I don’t know Jim Jr., nor does he know me – just from EKN and a few things I’ve had him fix (black boxes, etc.). Needless to say, I was quite shocked. It was still before 5:00PM his time, so I called him and asked what was up. His reply was “You wanted one to test - there you go.” Of course, my next question was “When do you want it back?” He replied with, “when you break it.” I still wasn’t sure why he had sent it to me, but the “When you break it” comment stuck in my head. TaG (Touch and Go) was originally a low cost/low maintenance concept and yet, look where we are today. I’m probably among the fairly typical guys who buy a Leopard with the purpose of racing for fun - not training or professional driving aspirations. Like a lot of guys, I’ve been frustrated with the reliability issues of the current Leopard.
Now, I’m a club racer / mid-pack kinda guy. I’ve been running for three years and I do it for fun. No aspirations to run CKI , WKA or anything – it’s a hobby. I happen to live about five miles from NCMP, so if the weather is nice (unfortunately, this has been rare this year), it’s not uncommon for me to spend three or four evenings a week at the track. I’ve got somewhere around 120 hours in my kart. With a minute average lap, you’re looking at around 7000 laps. I know the track well and I’ve never driven anything but a Leopard.
 | The 2009 Parilla Leopard looks very similar to the pre-2009 model with the added fins for cooling
(Photo: S. Heavin) |
What makes receiving the engine even more interesting was that the night before I got the ’09, I bent the crank in my engine! I wasn’t sure if I was going to get it rebuilt or go for an ’09. Jim Jr. sent me the engine only – no carb, pipe or electronics. All of that is off my old Leopard, so no advantages / disadvantages there. I did have to swap the stator and rig the harness to work since I’m using a black box vs. a Digital K ignition.
On to the differences. I’m not going to get into the internal differences – there are some, but somebody with more knowledge than me can explain them better. Starting at the front is the carb/manifold angle. It’s cocked outboard around 30 degrees. Not sure why, but I’m sure there is a reason. It makes the bottom 10mm carb nut a super-pain to get to, but since you’re not dealing with that every day, it’s not a huge issue. The other thing I’ve noticed is that you tend to get a bubble in your fuel line because it now arcs up and over the carb. The solution may be to run the fuel line outboard, but I haven’t tried that yet. The bottom part of the case now has cooling fins (front and back), and the overall footprint is a bit larger – you can still use an Odenthal mount, but instead of the two inner sets of holes, you use one inner, one outer. Not a huge difference but it’s apparently to stiffen everything up. You also don’t use the vibration plate.
The biggest changes happen under the clutch cover. First, there is a 3rd bearing built into the clutch cover. The PTO itself slips right into it. Moving on in, you’ll see there is no outer nut – the clutch drum is held on by a snap ring. Inside the snap ring is a small spacer, and then the roller bearing and an internal bevel washer like the previous model. The clutch is completely different and the drum is now vented. The clutch appears to carry a little less mass than the old one. The driver is different as well – it’s now held on by four allen screws that come through the back / inside of the drum instead of the other way around. And, since you don’t have the 17mm nut, the crank now has a JICA style end on it so you need an adaptor to nut start it. I just got one from Russell that slips inside a 17mm socket. I’ve been told the starter and the Bendix are the same (and they look the same), but there were changes to the engine itself to make everything stiffer so breaking the brushes due to vibration isn’t as much of a problem. The Bendix still scares me. I’ve had two of these models engage and destroy cranks.
 | The clutch parts of the 2009 Leopard are one of the most visible changes made to the engine
(Photo: S. Heavin) |
A little about set-up.
Jim Jr. told me where he set the needles on his carb and I duplicated them…and I hit a whopping 6,000 RPM on my first run. Woohoo! I kept turning them back until it felt good and the engine didn’t bog. The way Comet Kart Sales built my carburetor you have to set the needles to two turns on the low speed needle and 7/8-turn on the high speed needle for the current model Leopard. With the ’09 Leopard, I was at 2 1/8 on the low and 1 1/8 on the high. Obviously, carburetor settings vary by builder but assume you’ll have to be higher with an ’09 Leopard.
After getting the carb set, it was time for some running. So far, I’ve put just under three hours on it. I’m not testing back to back with an old model or even going strictly by lap times only since they can vary significantly at NCMP due to time, track and weather conditions. My overall gut tells me that it’s extremely close in performance to the current model. I’ve always been within my normal range of lap times (depending on weather/track conditions). And I’ll say this, if I had to run an ’09 in my class and was the only one, I wouldn’t feel at a disadvantage. And if I was the only one in the class running the current model, I wouldn’t feel it was unfair. The only thing I’ve noticed different is how it carries RPM under breaking or coasting. You seem to come out of the turns at a little higher RPM. Not much, but when you’ve run as many laps as I have on the same track, you know your exit RPM. On the flip side, if you bog an ’09 engine and get it under 5K RPMs, you might as well get out and push - it’s a dog if you screw up. Obviously, you shouldn’t be under 5K once you leave the pits, but hey – it happens.
I’m going to play with the flex a bit as well - just haven’t had the chance yet. I’m at 16.25” right now. So, as far as the big question on performance, my gut and lap times tell me they’re very close. The overall feel is the same. Maybe someone with more experience can tell some minute differences, but if I was blindfolded (may help my driving) I couldn’t tell the difference on the track.
 | The clutch is similar to the pre-2009 models however the PTO shaft has a different fitting on the end to hold the clutch on
(Photo: S. Heavin) |
There are a couple non-performance differences you’ll feel. First, it will run a bit cooler. I’m anywhere from 5-7 degrees off my normal high temps. The ’09 Leopard is also smoother and the vibration is not as intense. I was actually expecting a bigger difference (due to the 3rd bearing support), but it’s definitely less.
The only issue I’ve had so far was the starter. It stopped working after about 30 minutes. I assumed I had broken the brushes, but they were fine – one was just siliconed into the channel and stuck. Also, there was deformation inside of the clutch cover around the collar that holds the 3rd bearing in. I thought it was something that happened while I had it, but Jim Jr. said it was from him running a 16T driver (he had about 2 hours on the engine).
I hope the changes designed to help reliability (more cooling, 3rd bearing, new clutch, etc.) really do work. I’ve seen a number of guys throw in the towel in the last couple of years due to cost/reliability issues, and I hate to see that. Karting is such a great sport with great people that you hate to see your friends leave.
That’s my report so far. I’ve been sending mini-reports to Russell Karting every few days with my likes/dislikes and anything I’ve noticed. In the interest of full disclosure, Jim told me to write exactly what I thought of it good & bad, and he’s not reviewed this in any way. And a big thanks to Russell Karting and Jim Jr. for loaning this to me to play with. It’s been kinda fun, and I’ll continue to try to break it!
To discuss the article, visit the '09 Leopard thread where the joint venture between Heavin and Russell began in the TaG Section of the EKN Forums - HERE. |
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