Sometimes.

Sometimes it will make it worse. It depends on what the actual issue is with the handling.

On OTK karts we usually would go harder on a high grip track. Soft axles can get really soft and squishy in the corners if the grip level goes up.

Is the kart just flat and boggy through the whole corner or is it specific to the entry, apex, or exit of the corner?

If it’s pushing on entry then generally you’d want to add caster to fix that, but if it’s hopping mid-corner, you would want to reduce caster so that’s a little puzzling.

When you say “extra seat braces”, how many additional seat stays are you running besides the factory chassis ones?

Try it and see, no harm in testing a few things. What works for one person might be different for another.

We have a hopping problem going into turns on a high grip track. We are running a  Yamaha on a OTK Kosmic Mercury I have the wheels set to 54 3/4″ and we are using the gold stabilizer bar in the front and none in the rear. I tried raising the axle in the frame that seemed to help but was destroying the bottom of the frame over the rumble strips( I know stay of the strips)  So I put the axle back to the middle setting. What would you try next? I’m not sure from these posts if I should try a harder or softer axle to fix this.

Thanks

Does a hard axle = more grip on a track without grip or a track with a lot of grip?

When do I use a soft axle? or is the question not that straight forward to answer?

If it’s hopping on entry, you have too much initial flex and lift. You’re probably too soft.

The answer isn’t straight forward because it completely depends on what the kart is doing. What axle is in there?

It has the type N stock axle now

My 14 year old daughter drives the kart so I don’t get much input from her yet but were working on that. She used to have steering issues and they seemed to go away when we put in the gold/stiff stabilizer bar but that created the hop in the back. Most everything I am trying to adjust is coming from what I see her do on the track or though the GoPro camera.

If a kart is setup properly, it should be allllllmost on the brink of hopping, because that means you’re getting maximum usable grip.

I would suggest tightening up the 3rd bearing and seeing if that fixes it. It’s a small change but it’s best to try something small in that direction before going gung-ho and changing an axle. The axle might be too much. From personal experience, it’s very easy to make too big of a change, gain nothing in lap time, and end up on the opposite side of the issues you were trying to fix.

It sounds like you needed more front grip, so you added the gold bar, which then made the rear flex too much on entry, resulting in a hop. Widening the rear by 5-10mm would probably help too, but 54 3/4″ is pretty baseline so I would just leave it for now. Maybe if the 3rd bearing helps but doesn’t quite fix it fully, you could widen the rear out just a bit.

TJ,

That’s interesting. Not only due I not have the third bearing in the axle tight I do not even have it on the kart. Someone told me a while back to take the bolts out of that bearing so I did (no one else seems to run them bolted in) and they said it would free the kart up. Then it bothered me just rattling around and I was already heavy so I took it off completely. I imagine that this has the effect of stiffening the axle?

Of course – Why didn’t I think of that? I’m adding weight to get my son up to senior weight this weekend and I’ve been running without the third bearing. It’s going back in Saturday. Thanks for the inadvertent tip T.J. :)

One thing to also think about is the karts dont like to always off the throttle all the way thru the turns.  An OFF throttle will tend to have the kart kind of flop until the throttle is picked back up.  Not 100% but just a crack can really settle that kind of hop down.

Good note Barry. The kart frame is a spring. If it isn’t fully loaded, it will start rebounding.

A kart might be set up technically perfect for the track conditions, but if you aren’t loading it just the right amount by driving on the limit, it could react poorly to inputs.