[Jay Sinon]

One other thing I like about the GPS option is that it gives you lateral acceleration and G-Force this helps me determine when my 15 year old actually got on and off the gas and brake without anything else attached to the kart. They will tell you I put on the brakes here but you can show them no you let off the gas there and applied the brakes here. Its a great learning tool!

[Jay Sinon]

I agree with Gary, I use the Mychron 4 with the GPS option and love it! The GPS helps pinpoint problem areas that you’re having on the track. The Race studio program that you download onto your laptop is phenomenal IMO. the GPS works well for 2 reasons I think, 1) the lap timing device at our track seems to be hit or miss whether its working/counting laps so we didn’t always get our information correctly and with the GPS option you don’t have to relies on the tracks components to make the system work. 2) When you overlay lap over lap on top of each other it gives you the ability to show your 13 year how consisted he is in each and ever turn and by seeing this you both can figure out together the fastest way around the track.

I also agree with Walt EGT is way more useful as a tuning tool then CHT.

Good Luck!

[Jay Sinon]

Thought the show was great. Great camera work and great announcing.  That being said I would have loved to see a hour long show with more races one of them being TaG Jr. especially since the show Kart Life has brought the juniors into our living rooms and we now know the names of these up and coming racers.

I also agree with Ty about the graphics, I thought they could have been bigger.

[Jay Sinon]

Patrick said:

“Karting isn’t a sport that the size of the person gives them a significant advantage”

“I maintain that size should be the differentiator and not the age.”

?????????????

 

[Jay Sinon]

Tim,

Love your football analogy I think your absolutely right but I don’t agree with the move them up part. What if there in the running for the points battle? There in 1st place for the season and with 2 races to go in the season bang you have to move up? Now they cant win either the sportsman or junior class for that year.

[Jay Sinon]

Sorry Walt,

I just re-read your post again and I now assume you mean take the chain apart when you said break the chain all day long.

[Jay Sinon]

No offence Walt but if you break a chain you through it in the trash as it is stretched and damaged. I have raced motorcycles most of my life in the dirt and the street some with over 100HP and have never broken a master link. So I cant imagine a 10hp B&S engine being to hard on a master link.

[Jay Sinon]

We were at the WKA race at GoPro Motorplex last month racing Yamaha Sr.  The front 3 guys were battling it out all weekend cutting each other off and taking each other out. When they came of the track and got to the scale they would start yelling at each other “you took me out” “Wait until next round I will show you” Obviously I cleaned up the language for the sake of this article but this was every single time they came off the track and then they would yell at each other until the officials finally would separate them, and in the middle of all these so called adults is my 15 year old daughter who I told to just stay away from these guys or they will end up taking you out. Point is tempers flair kids yell at kids-ok, adults yell at adults-ok, taking it out on track happens between kids and adults and if one of those grown men ever came after my 15 year old daughter after the race  you better believe I will jump in to protect her that’s my job as a father and there we have the problem with adults racing kids. I see it all the time and I shouldn’t have tell my daughter stay away from them I should be telling her go get them and do your best.

[Jay Sinon]

Not sure of your answer but why do you run a 219 chain? Most 4 stroke guys run 35 chain and a split sprocket due to them being inboard of the axle bearings. The 35 chain uses a master link so you would not weaken the chain by pressing it apart. 219 chains seem to be popular with the 2 stroke crowd who run out board sprockets and chains being that they don’t have to take them apart to remove them from the kart and therefor don’t need a master link.

[Jay Sinon]

Lower them NO raise them YES

I have a 15 year old that races seniors this year not because I want her to race adults but because of the weight. Yamaha Jr. is 320 Yamaha Sr. is 360lbs were we race and 350lbs in WKA. At 15 she can run junior or senior but We are 330lbs on the scale with no weight and a little fuel. Therefore we can not be competitive in the jr. class and had to move to Seniors in order to stay  competitive. I would love to stay in the juniors until 18, at 18 your out of high school and more likely to be considered a adult. If my kid takes out a adult we say sorry we are learning and move on but that adult  has to work on Monday and probably  races different because of that.

I also agree with Dan’s comment I’ve seen tempers flair and this becomes very touchy when it is a adult interacting with a child. Lets let children be children and add weight to the classes so they can stay in juniors longer and have more people be competitive for a longer period of time. My daughter now races against grown men that are 20lbs over the 360 weight so its not fair to them either.

I also believe that children are more aggressive and take more risks on the track because they can, and they don’t know better yet. An adult who breaks his arm he could be out of work for a while costing money to a child that breaks his/her arm this is a trophy at school were they get to tell the story over and over while all there friends sign there arm.

[Jay Sinon]

Sorry Jim,

I did not really time anything so I’m sure your right about the amount of track time for the finals we just watched and waited for our turn on the track and it didn’t seem like one race went quicker then the others, but just out of curiosity were your practices and qualifying times the same amount of time as everyone else? Or were they shortened too? 8 minutes I think it was? I wonder if the rain had something to do with it or that’s a normal procedure as it seemed in the drivers meetings they wanted to get out of there and it did rain both weekends for both the WKA and USPKS races.

[Jay Sinon]

Horstman HDC5 B two disk or HDC5C three disk depending on your weight and track 3 disk takes more abuse.

[Jay Sinon]

Kartsport is a Arrow Dealer and a good group of guys to deal with.

http://www.kartsportna.com

 

 

[Jay Sinon]

I know a couple people that have Yamaha Karts they rent if you leave contact information I will forward it to them for you.

Are you looking for Rookie, Jr. or Sr. class?

[Jay Sinon]

One thing you should keep in mind too is not the amount of laps but the amount of track time.  Looking at it that way the faster karts even though they run more laps are probably on the track for the same amount of time. Honestly to watch kid karts go 16 laps would take forever and be boring to watch unless you are a parent of one of the drivers. No offence to the little guys!

[Jay Sinon]

I have been turning wrenches for over 30 years in the northeast so I am used to working with a torch and rusted and stripped bolts. I have used both over the years as helicoils have been around longer, but my personal preference would be to use the time-serts. They take one more step to install them as they need to be countersunk but I have never had one fail once you locktite them in there in for good were as I have had helicoils come out with the bolt after a while. I have never used them on a animal engine but I have used them on the exhaust in aluminum automotive cylinder heads with great results. If anyone remembers the Cadillac Northstar ring recall you know what I mean, they had such a problem that they actually came out with special tools and a repair procedure when the head bolts let go in the block. Got to love aluminum!

[Jay Sinon]

Hi David,

WKA was at GoPro Motorplex last weekend were you guys there? Any updates on that? I hoping to see a article on that race today. Great racing but the rain made it a mess!

[Jay Sinon]

I missed it. Does anyone know if it will be rerun and When and where?

[Jay Sinon]

Too Funny!  I believe there practicing at woodleaf tonight. I have some friends that said they were going there.

[Jay Sinon]

Hi Daren,

I know you mentioned dirt ovals but right down the road from Woodleaf is one of the best asphalt tracks in the country.  Just a thought but you might want to try GoPro Motorplex in Mooresville. One big advantage to them  is there almost always open so you can go run/practice any day of the week that works with your schedule and they also have great local club races called the karting Challenge as well as National events. Good crowds and good fun that’s if you can handle 7/10ths of a mile of Pavement and turning both right and left :-)

Check it out       www.gopromotorplex.com

Hope to see you there.

 

[Jay Sinon]

Sorry,

I use a Leatt GPX Club Plus, I guess I just assumed they all had the same adjustments.

[Jay Sinon]

My Daughter uses one of these, I think there the best on the market IMO, and Clark is right they are designed to allow movement but that movement can be adjusted to give you more or less movement. Have you adjusted it per the owners manual? There are a couple little allen screws that will let you adjust the amount of movement more or less and once you get it right you lock it down and never do it again.  Just unlock the latch and remove it.

[Jay Sinon]

Walt.

What point did I prove ? I thought I proved that  karts aren’t the same that there are big differences between them all. There are big differences in the same kart manufacture just from year to year and model to model. Take Top Kart if you buy a 2014 or earlier you get a brake system that uses screws and springs to return the pistons back inside the caliper and when your brakes start to wear you need to put shims in behind the pads because the pistons only have so much movement. That’s a lot of work just to have brakes! Now in 2015 they changed brake systems and now they use a self adjusting brake system similar to a car. The master cylinder holds enough fluid in it to keep pushing out the pistons until the brakes wear out just like a automotive system. Then we could talk about floating rotors over fixed rotors, 30mm frames over 32mm frames. There are so many differences between models and years not to mention the differences between manufacture’s.

So my point was when you said  ”A kart is a kart, it’s just a steel tubular frame with 4 rubber tires.” I don’t think that is true. Do I love my Tony/Kosmic frame Absolutely! Do I think that there are a lot of good kart manufactures out there Yes. Do I think there is a lot of differences out there Absolutely! and that was my point.

Tadas,

Good luck on what ever you pick. In the end its not what frame you pick but how much fun your having on it!

[Jay Sinon]

I would only use heat as a last resort there is a chance that you could change the tensile strength of the metal or possible warp the clutch. Which clutch puller were you using the Horstman one that pulls with 5 bolts or the aftermarket puller that pulls off of the spring perches  or a regular 2 or 3 jar puller? What exactly stripped? were you using air tools?

When you do get it off and you get ready to reinstall it, try installing it with no key and some valve grinding compound between the clutch and the crank. Spin the clutch by hand on the crank until both surfaces match then clean the valve grinding compound off and install the key and reinstall the clutch this will mate the two surfaces better and help it seat flush on the crank which should make it stay on and remove better as there will not be a rocking motion between the two pieces that could cause a binding or shearing on the key.

[Jay Sinon]

I disagree with a kart is a kart. I agree that practically everyone is using the same basic frame design made mostly with the same Italian steel, but there is much more to a kart then the frame. Personally I love the Tony karts braking system there were many manufactures that didn’t even use a automotive style master cylinder so you would have to constantly adjust or shim the brakes every race day. I see that Top Kart this year finally came out with what appears to be a decent brake system that will adjust on its own. One other thing that makes them different is the camber/caster adjustments some karts as the Tony karts come stock with a lot more adjustment then some other karts, then again the Margay seems to have the easiest and best camber/caster I’ve ever seen to set up and change.

Just IMO of course I don’t run TAG so I wouldn’t know which frame size to run.  I run Yamaha on a Kosmic Mercury. I have seen guys who run TAG on both the 30mm mercury frame as well as the 32mm Lynx frame The guys on the 30mm frame say that they twist and handle better and the guys using the 32mm frames say they would just wear out a 3omm frame to fast.

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