[Charles Kaneb]

What mounting scheme are you using for the tank? Is it wedged tightly over a large area into the chassis rails and secured by only one bolt? How’s it isolated from the chassis – exclusively pushing through rubber washers, or is it steel-to-steel-to-plastic? Is it on the floorpan, or vibrating next to it and hitting 10,000 times per lap? See if a couple pieces of Silly Putty between the tank sides and any metal it’s close to help.

What are you using for fuel/oil?  E10 street gas, 100 oxygenated unleaded race gas, 100LL avgas, 98 or 110 leaded race gas shouldn’t damage a tank. If you’re leaving methanol in it overnight it’ll rapidly age an HDPE/HDPP plastic  tank, same goes for copper-containing alloys of aluminum or magnesium. Hydrogen peroxide, nitromethane, and 1, 4 dioxin are hard on plastic containers and if you’re using any of them please stop before you poison someone or blast yourself to Jupiter the long way.

 

 

 

[Charles Kaneb]

Arie,

I raced a World Formula a week after racing an ICC, both for Mike Camarra. The WF was still fun, especially trying to keep up with the Yamahas and Jr Tags. The key is to run the slower stuff on a tight track setup unless you’ve got a big pack.

Cone chicanes help if you don’t want to try to run different configurations for different classes.

-Charles

[Charles Kaneb]

Is the kart still for sale?

 

 

[Charles Kaneb]

If you have ’em, you’ll use ’em.

I raced indoor karts two days ago.

I got hit from behind so hard that the kart in front spun out. I saw a guy make a crazy move, hit the wall so hard he was halfway out of the kart, then THREE LAPS LATER make the exact same move in the exact same spot and end up stationary.

Ever see the little rollers on Rotax DD2 karts? If you installed a set of those in front of and behind the front wheels and behind the rear wheels you could get rid of the rest of the bodywork.

[Charles Kaneb]

If you’re in the northeast, then OVRP/Hannen sells Birels, CRG America sells CRGs, CFMotorsports sells GPs, and Prospeed sells Arrows, Margays, and Tonykarts.

[Charles Kaneb]

One thing to note is that the grip level changes as you go into and through a corner. Tires can heat up 50*F between the braking point and exit. You can corner harder near the apex than you did at entry. On exit you’ll have to worry about tire drag, so set your line so that you’re reducing total tire force away from the limit there.

[Charles Kaneb]

My short answer is that it has a coated piston and a plated bore.

My longer answer is that they wanted less maintenance and lower emissions than other engines. Therefore, they chose a cleaner-burning synthetic oil, specified a lower oil-gas ratio to try to minimize buildup, and relied on the coatings to avoid seizure when lubrication conditions worked well.

In my case at least it worked. I got 81 hours out of a Rotax piston on Gulf 93 and Motul synthetic. It’s probably the best part of the Rotax package.

[Charles Kaneb]

There are HUGE advantages to a supply chain that’s 50 feet long.

Let’s say the assembler notices that the hub he just tried to put on doesn’t fit.

iKart model: Stop work, walk over to the machinist, check the part out with the gauge the machinist made to check these parts, find that when he changed tools the new one’s offset was different, machinist throws part in rework bin, changes the offset, next few parts get checked carefully. Total time lost: 30 man-minutes plus the time the machinist needs to find the problem.

Chinitalian model: Stop work, go to the parts bin with the calipers, find that the next 157 hubs are the same way, call the boss over, show him the problem, waste time with general-purpose measuring equipment to find out what the problem actually is, divert the machinist from her work to look at a part she normally doesn’t make, build a fixture to rework the parts, call the supplier to tell them the parts are wrong, exchange photos and emails until it makes it to the shop floor at the factory, they find they’ve made 900 parts the wrong way. Total time lost: 30 man-hours plus having to eat the rework costs because it’s too expensive to ship ’em back to the factory!

Next scenario: Jimmy Hotshoe notices that the more he moves the front hubs in at the East Overshoe GP, the better the thing handles. By race time they’re all the way in and he’s on the podium.

iKart model: First thing Monday morning is a quick meeting to discuss a new short-shank spindle. The guy who did the calculations and drawings on the last one is there, same for who made it, same for the boss who’ll determine whether it’s worth it. They both make the engineering and manufacturability improvements on the new drawing that they wanted in the old one anyway while making it shorter.  Jimmy picks up the prototypes Wednesday night. Thursday morning it’s worth a tenth or so back-to-back at East Overshoe. Monday morning it’s on the website as an upgrade and option.

Chinitalian model: “Well, we’ll see if what worked at East Overshoe works at Brick City next week.” If it does, they’ll call a job shop and get ten specials made up for the “factory” drivers. Maybe next year they’ll go on the production karts?

Vertically-integrated GM (postwar): enough market share to nearly get broken up by the antitrust laws, ability to reshape what went on the roads and railways of the world at will, a well-deserved reputation for durable equipment that worked even when the manufacturing, assembly, and maintenance were all sloppy.

Outsourced GM: 30 years of X-cars, Dexcool, Northstars, decline, bankruptcy, public ownership and maybe a rebirth?

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