[Jay Sinon]

Gary,

As soon as you said they don’t ruin my axles. I said oh he is soooo right, that clamping system is so much nicer then a set screw digging into your axle. So I immediately  went to Comet kart sales and KartSport to look at them again $249. each $500. for bearings if I don’t use the third bearing cassette and I know if I install them someone will hit my tire bend my axle and ruin a bearing the following week it’s just my luck! I totally agree with you Gary but I just cant pull the trigger on them :-)

[Jay Sinon]

I agree with you Gary on buying bearings with the removable side plates it’s the only way to really get them clean. I personally like doing maintenance  on my kart I tare it down all the time just to get the frame clean and re-lock tite the bolts and I find the best way to do that is to pull the axle. My daughter drives and I just like to tinker with everything although I try not to do any maintenance at the track other then oiling everything. I also agree that the manufacturer puts the grease in for a reason and I believe that reason is for longevity of the bearings life, however I don’t care so much about how long it last I want it to spin with as little resistance as possible which gives me less rolling resistance and more speed. imo

Of course I am cheap and cant see spending $200 on a ceramic bearing when I think I can come close to the same results with a $20 bearing, but I will say I have friends that use ceramic bearings and without a chain on there axle they seem to spin forever. Time versus money I guess.

[Jay Sinon]

When I buy new axle bearings they are always packed in grease slowing the axle down so I take a crock pot (my wife made me buy her a new one) and pour a 1/2 gallon of WD40 in it and let it get warm then place the bearings in there for a while and that melts the grease out of the bearings letting your axle spin much freer. You can also do this after cleaning them in heavy solvents works great. Pour the WD40 back into your gallon jug and it can be used again.

And then like Brock said when I’m at the track I spray Tri Flow in them between rounds.

[Jay Sinon]

One other thing that you might want to check is the spacer thickness, if the spacer is not the right size it will allow the clutch drum to ride back and forth on the crank and that will prematurely wear out the chain, sprockets and the clutch drum bushing.

[Jay Sinon]

About 4 races, I usually replace the bushing 1 time. There about $5 and very easy to replace and then the next time replace the entire drum about $65.(Recently I found aftermarket drums from Andrews Racing on eBay for $32) I find that if I go more then 8 races without changing both sprockets and the chain I end up breaking something sometimes the chain gets a bad spot earlier then that.

One other thing I keep a lot of is the shim/spacer between the crank and clutch drum I bought about a 1/2 dozen of the ones for a 10 tooth and another 1/2 dozen for the 11 tooth drums and then filed them all to different thicknesses and put each one through a tie rap with a piece of tape with the size written on them so when I change a bushing or drum I have them on hand for a easy quick swap.

[Jay Sinon]

The bushing in the drive hub is the weak link it will definitely wear out first. The only way the crank could wear is if the bushing disintegrates and you were left with steel on steel. Make sure that you spray between the crank and bushing every time you come off the track that will help with the wear. I use either WD40 or Tri Flo. If you have a lot of side wobble it could be a combination of a worn bushing and or to much clearance between the drum and crank spacer. Below I have put a link to the Horstman Spec and rebuild instructions. I hope this helps.

https://horstmanclutches.3dcartstores.com/assets/images/WebsitePictures/ClutchInstructions/HDC-5ABManual2010.pdf

[Jay Sinon]

Just a thought Andrews Racing is getting out of the clutch drum business and they are selling drums cheap! $32. on eBay they had both Horstman and Tomar drums. I bought a 10 and 11 tooth drum they look nice, haven’t used them yet.

[Jay Sinon]

We just switched to Yamaha Sr. this year and so far we haven’t noticed much change in the lap times. Our Jr. engine made about 19 hp at 320 lbs. Now we our making about 22hp but weigh 360 lbs.  My Daughter said she likes running the pipe more midrange in the turns but I think the extra weight we are caring balances out the extra power we make.  Not much time on the pipe yet to really come up with conclusive results but this is what I’ve seen so far. Is everybody else seeing the same thing? Or do I not have it figured out yet?

PS: We are running a 11 turn 7/10ths mile track

[Jay Sinon]

Gary,

Your absolutely right! I see more people do more damage to there clutch before the first lap has been completed then during the course of the race. I know the Yamaha doesn’t like to stay running on the grid or at slow speeds but I have found that if you run the low speed jet 1/2 to 3/4 of a turn it will idle without burning up your clutch then just before you start racing open the low speed screw to your race setting and let her rip.

Josh,

Thanks for the update that makes a lot more sense. We run 7/10ths of a mile with only one really slow turn and of course if you run twice the karts twice the fun twice the money!

[Jay Sinon]

Josh,

I don’t know I have been running a Horstman HDC5B 2 disk dry clutch for 3 years and have never had a failure! I take it apart every couple of races Maybe change a disk or a steal to get it back into specs and have no problems. I cant imagine spending $ 2000. in clutches. What’s your stall speed does your clutch come unlocked a lot? I set mine at 8600 rpm and it only disengages in 1 of 16 turns according to my Mychron 4.

Love the Horstman 2 disk dry clutch!

[Jay Sinon]

my daughter has had a couple different karts we started on a Mike Wilson and since then we have had two OTK Kosmic Mercury’s. Like TJ said the right driver can win on anything but the things I like about the OTK karts  are the brake systems so many karts have brake systems that constantly need shims added and subtracted to keep them working were the otk has a automotive style master cylinder that adds fluid to the calipers as the pads were down constantly keeping proper adjustment, also I find that the front end seems to have a lot of adjustment for the caster and camber.

[Jay Sinon]

Post your email address and I will send you some files. What do you run? My data is from my daughters Yamaha Jr. But I have friends that run TAG there if that’s what your looking for I can get a file from them. Or you can email me at

jaysinon@msn.com

[Jay Sinon]

I have 4 tie down rings in the floor and I leave my kart on the rolling/folding stand I then use 4 tie downs. I wrap a strap around the front corners of the frame behind the spindles going straight down and then cross the back tie downs side to side and strap them to the nerf bars that hold the side pods. I have been doing this for 2 years with no problems and the frame is still straight. Works for me however, I have seen people that have had them fall but I believe it is because there stands have a hard plastic wrap around there stands I have rubber heater hose around the stand  and the kart does not like to slip or move on that.

[Jay Sinon]

Hi Mark,

Just got the motor mount. Great Part!! Great Price!!

Thanks, Jay

[Jay Sinon]

Very Cool!!

Just shows ingenuity goes a long way if you want something bad enough.

[Jay Sinon]

Hi Mike,

Yes, I did mean MXC not MCX I guess spell check only works when it’s a real word. Looking forward to the 2015 season  with you and Mark. In the meantime we will just have to bench race a while longer.

[Jay Sinon]

What is the difference between MXP and MXC besides several hundred dollars?

[Jay Sinon]

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?

 

[Jay Sinon]

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.

[Jay Sinon]

It has the type N stock axle now

[Jay Sinon]

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?

[Jay Sinon]

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

[Jay Sinon]

I have a set of MXP in the 180 for the 6″ and 210 for the 7.10″ and I know the tires are 11×6-5 and 11×7.10-5  so they shouldn’t be any taller but when I measured the circumference of the two sets the 7.10 were taller by about a inch is that not normal?  or do the tires have different heights? Both were measured with 12 PSI.

[Jay Sinon]

We are also in the transition from 6″ to 7.10″ Did you notice that the 7.10″ as well as being wider were a little taller did you change the gear to compensate for the difference? Or is going from the can to the pipe enough to compensate for the tire size difference? We are still trying to wear out all of our old 6″ tires so I have not run the 7.10″ but I did measure a difference on a buddies kart.

[Jay Sinon]

Daniel

I know there are a lot of people that say your supposed to take your clutch apart every race but I found that they really don’t need that much maintenance. The main wear idem I see is the clutch drum bushing there about $5 a piece and they seem to last about 4 or 5 races.(When it starts to go bad you get a lot of wobble between the clutch drum and the crank letting you know the bushings worn out) Every time my kart  comes off the track I spray the crank and clutch drum with WD40 that seems to keep the bushing lubed and freed up. When I spray it, it gets all over the clutch material but I have never had a problem with slipping or wear.

As far as locktite goes I take almost the whole kart apart every 3 to 4 races to clean it real good and then re-locktite it with Blue locktite because a lot of things loosing over time Those karts and engines have a tremendous amount of vibration trying to rattle everything loose.

You Know I also hear a lot of people say you should rebuild the carb before every race because a fresh diaphragm gasket (fuel pump gasket)makes more power but I go several races before changing the gaskets. I have rebuilt them in the past but never noticed a difference in our lap times so I let them go longer. That being said my kart doesn’t sit for long as we practice once a week and maybe it is the sitting with gas that hurts the diaphragm?

Hope this helps!

Jay

 

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