[Ian Krueger]

Oh I did not know of them, perhaps I will check them out. Thanks!

[Ian Krueger]

nope, i live too far. However I will be at VIR, Summit Point, and Daytona. And Mid Ohio if the WKA ever returns there someday. Yeah I am in New Hampshire and it is about 20 hours to georgia which is a bummer

[Ian Krueger]

Thanks for the thought Freddy, but if you look at #5 on that list, they dont have them listed for sale. Ive called them before and they said they didn;t have any.

 

Im sure i can make my own but it was a shot in the dark, thanks tho!

[Ian Krueger]

nice job i was looking at the old photos of when that chassis was bare metal, nice work!

[Ian Krueger]

every race always has a story to tell

[Ian Krueger]

yes i use a total of around 9 or 10 to keep everything in place. Im actually considering making myself a set of beefy collars to hold my axle clutches in place because i have the space. Also I use blue loctite on the ones i move often, and red loctite on the ones around the brake rotor, axle clutch, just to be safe. Ive lost a couple before on track

[Ian Krueger]

nice work i cant wait to get working on mine, yeah for the seat maybe you could cut off the front corners to get it to fit within the frame rails? Just an idea, to give you another inch of low, but great work really inspiring me to get out there and work on mine too

[Ian Krueger]

Sorry I dont have the dates yet but I was trying to just get the word out in advance

[Ian Krueger]

I mean some days throughout the season we run the short track and I was saying I’ll send the specific dates of the road course days so nobody accidently comes up on a short track day, thinking it’s a long track day. I’m saying it’s not always a road race every time, only two weekends it will be

[Ian Krueger]

Hello, I used to Autocross at about that age as well, and it’s perfect for kids especially, even me with how shy and anxious i used to be (Lol)

As Alan said, yes the Briggs and Stratton Animal or also even the LO206 (raptor) engines, are all very simple. You pretty much just have to pull start it and once its set up properly, there is really no mainenence. The clutches are usually bullet proof. We’d go atleast 3 or 4 years on the same chain and tires, doing literally no work to the kart other than some carb tuning here and there.

Definitly start out with one go kart, and since according to almost all SOLO rules, the karts all run in the same group, without other cars running. So what me, my dad, and later my sis used to do, we all drove the same go kart, it was a Briggs Raptor engine, and we had Zuess Tabs connecting a smaller seat inside the adult seat, as well as pedal extensions that were quick release. It was very goofy, but it worked! We had to do it efficiently so we didnt waste time, is the trick.

For the sake of simplicity, just have your son drive in the FJB class with your daughter. Depending on where your club is, usually they will allow for this because it isnt extremely competitive anyways. otherwise yes you will have to have your son race with the restrictor in FJA which isnt too bad. The issue we ran into was locally it was fun but nationally, I dont want to sound biased but the karters that do national autocrosses , theres a lot of cheating and pointless drama, over competetive.

The next step up from the 4 Strok Briggs is the allmighty Yamaha Kt100. Depending how your kids like it, thats a much bigger thrill, but a looooooot of maintenence. It’s a big step so hold off on the Yamaha for a couple of years atleast. We tried to compete Nationally with the yamahas once, and yeah people spend way too much money and its not fun. But these engines are for 13 or 14 years or older usually anyways. (starting with the 3 hold can class, then the 4 hole can class, then the pipe/adult class)

After a few years of autocrossing, depending where you live again, you may want to see if the kids are interested in wheel to wheel racing! It’s definitly more competitive and a little more expensive anually, (tires, fuel etc mainly), and hey im 21 years old now and im totally on my own fiddling with my karts, preparing to race Daytona next year. You can;t force the kids to like it but if they do like it, you’ll know real quick! :)

Karting, for me, taught me about driving at a young age yes, but also taught me a lot of science, mechanical skills, useful things like tire pressures, offset wheel bases depending on the AutoX course, etc etc. and it was the most fun i’ve had. You may not have the fastest go kart but hey its all about starting very small, testing waters, buying a complete 4 stroke kart for no more than $1000. Then from there, if the kids really love it, you can start teaching them those skills, just simple stuff as i said, but it goes a long ways. Affordable, fun, for adults and kids

[Ian Krueger]

I tried to send you one but its not working, i didnt see your message on the inbox. If you want to email me, ianrkrueger@gmail.com, that would be great, thanks

[Ian Krueger]

ts racing has some old ones, not sure really what specific races or whatever, but yeah check out their gallery for the heck of it. It’s like time travelling

https://www.tsracing.com/Kartphotos/HomeSKUSA04/HomesteadSKUSA04.htm

https://www.tsracing.com/kartpic.html

[Ian Krueger]

also if running a chain drive, id definitly recommend to bring quite a few spares, and put on a brand spanking chain for the final race. because that track is brutal on driveline

[Ian Krueger]

yeah as you said its a good idea you were thinking about gearing it a 16/70 forstarters,  because For new tracks I like to shoot for a too low of a gear ratio, and then work into it. Id rather be on the clutch more, than be maxing out the engine the whole time. then from there, work into the 16/76 (figuratively). best of luck wish i could help further, i havent raced there yet

[Ian Krueger]

to answer your question, definitly slower but not that much. maybe 1 second at Roebling and maybe more like 2 sec slower at Daytona. Im not 100% sure at all ive never raced either of those tracks but i do know aerodynamics are pretty important atleast in road races.

[Ian Krueger]

I’ve learned about over 75mph is where the body starts to work good. But i’m not totally sure that the rules allow for no bodywork.

I checked the WKA manual and it doesnt specify that body is required, it just specifies what the bodies max dimensions are.

Id maybe first call the WKA office and check to make sure its OK to run without a body. Id think you need atleast a plastic nose to deflect possible kart launches, but im not sure

[Ian Krueger]

i cant find them anywhere. I’m going to give SMC a buzz monday or tuesday to see if they could get me like 10 of them lol

[Ian Krueger]

Thanks, and best of luck with your hunt on finding the name of the chassis, wish i knew more about old stuff like that :(

[Ian Krueger]

Update: it’s an RK100 , anniversary edition. Got a square exhaust outlet (rectangle I should say) and we ran the WB3 carb same as the yamahas

[Ian Krueger]

Hey Tim; Could you tell me the width of the chassis at the rear of the main tubes? where the bumper plugs into. I actually have a project of my own and im trying to get a baseline of widths of other enduro chassis to see what different sizes people have, new and old!

[Ian Krueger]

oh wow, thanks john. Yeah i’ve never run a reedjet before so I’d imagine they are a bit more expensive to rebuild.

Yeah i have seen the Komet’s around and yes we use the WB3a carbs as well so that will be nice.

The main problem I’d face is the fact that I’d need about 150lbs of ballast to make weight with a reed pair, which would be very terrible to balance, and wouldbe even worse news if i got in a crash. I’m not going for competitiveness, but I think with the lower weight and the Komet set up that might work. Like I said it’s kind of a crappy excuse but since i’m so short yeah it’s very challenging to make 360 for my sprint class, let alone 465 for the reedjet B stock lol.

 

Thanks for the suggestions John!

[Ian Krueger]

weirdly enough, the main reason i went with specifically the SMC is because i found a set of springs and weights for it wehad in our attic a looong time ago, so i just went with that haha. but I did end up finding one but thank you for the offer anyhow!

[Ian Krueger]

Oh okay. Yes I remember now, reading about it awhile back. yeah it comes down to having (one) axle clutch already, quite a few kt100s, all the belt drivers and stuff so i think i’ll just stick with the 2-cycle stuff for now. it’s all still just planning 2-3 years down the line. yeah it really comes down to what i have for spares, if i switched to the watercooled stuff, it would be quite the investment just getting spares of everything.

 

thank you for the advice in any case.

[Ian Krueger]

okay thanks, yeah i knew the controlled engines were a lot more powerful, but i didnt realise it was that much! yeah and thanks for the suggestion. I’m born naturally as a yamaha guy, grew up with them for 10 years, so the rotax laydown doesnt appeal to me as much, but still a nice comment. yeah i don’t have nearly the budget for f125 , or any knowledge on how they work, performance tuning wise. If that’s where the top laydown classes steer towards within the next decade, i might jump in later on. but the oldschool aircooled was always the appeal to me :). yeah i guess i will spend the next couple years scrounging for a pair of Pirellas or soemthing, thanks again for the advice Mike

[Ian Krueger]

Thanks Kelly but, I actually spoke with John at Foxvalley and I was able to snag the SMC. Thanks everyone for the replies, great help :)

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