that thing looks terrible.. my guess is it need a ton of money to get it running, and the chassis is so old, no way it will be competitive. You’d be better off getting a 2010-2014 chassis and motor. At least you’d know what you’re getting into. And “when” you crash this kart, its so old, you’ll never find parts for it. So you will have to either jerry-rig a fix, or get a new chassis.
A buddy of mine, bought a nice older topkart, trying to get into a shifter cheap, and had that issue. He bent a spindle, and couldnt find any anywhere. No one carried them anymore. Luckly he randomly found a guy selling a sent, but if he hadn’t, he would have had to convert the whole front end over to some other brand of spindles and brakes (which would have cost an arm and a leg). And even then, that may not have actually worked.
Running shifters is very expensive.. i thought i could do it cheap too (just tires and entry fee) and it turns out things break (even if you dont crash), and need to be replaced a lot. I would figure 850-1000 per weekend of racing for a shifter to be mildly competitive. Also there there will be a huge time commitment if you want to be fast. The fast guys that i race with are at the track every weekend practicing (when they arent at a race). They are buying tires by the case, rebuilding motors, buying a couple new chassis a year.
At your weight, you will be way over weight for any shifter class, unless your track offers a heavyweight class. Im 195lbs, and am 20lbs over weight for S4, which gets an extra 20lbs over the standard s1 / s2 shifter classes.
Also, if you’re just getting into karting, i really suggest getting into a L206 class if your local track offers it. Yes i know its not fast, but honestly if i had to do it again, thats the direction i would take. its a lot cheaper to get into. Cost to run, is way cheaper. things dont wear out or break like they do in shifter classes. And the racing is a lot closer. Here in California, its really making a big surge, and more and more people are getting into it. Motors cost about 500 bucks, and they run forever. tires can last a couple race weekends.
