[Christian Fox]

We’ve had groups of Briggs guys race at OVRP. They’ve come as a group, seemed like five or six of them. If three or four show up on a club race day, they will run a class. Give OVRP a call and see if they can get you in touch with some other Briggs guys. It’s not exactly local, but Quebec is Briggs Central. They get huge classes for all ages in Briggs at all the tracks in eastern Canada.

[Christian Fox]

Mark, it’s not a matter of writing anything off: the carb stop is mandatory now. Whether or not someone thinks it helps is moot, you’ve got to use it. The reason Rotax has mandated its use is people who figured out where to limit the slide were much faster, and the people that hadn’t figured it out were struggling/complaining. I’m just relaying what I’ve seen at the first two races at home and what my engine builder saw at the first CanAm race.

[Christian Fox]

Jerry,  an evo micro can’t be run with any success without limiting the throttle. You will have massive low end bog and limited top end. People were having so much difficulty finding the right slide setting, Maxspeed is now shipping a throttle stop similar (slightly shorter) to the old fr125 piece. It is going to be a mandatory piece (this is a good thing). With the throttle stop in place, we average 200 more rpm on the top end vs. our old fr125 setup. Without the stop, we were 200 rpm lower. The exhaust header is 4mm smaller in evo form; you can’t expect to just dump more air than before with a smaller exhaust outlet and get good results. And, no, jetting is now open for evo micro; most guys are way leaner than a 115. Set up correctly, an evo (new or upgrade) is way faster than a fr125 micro. Not even close, actually.

[Christian Fox]

Cool! we’ll be there Saturday, so we’ll see you then.

[Christian Fox]

Luis, have you guys played around with the throttle opening? I always assumed juniors ran with a throttle slide that opened fully, but a friend tells me that’s not necessarily true. Micros (I know, very different) have to run at about 3/4 max opening in order to function in Evo form. Before we limited the throttle opening, our Micro was behaving exactly as you describe. Rotax is now issuing new throttle stops for micros. I’d play with different throttle slide settings and see what happens. See you guys soon.

[Christian Fox]

Samir, don’t give up on the Rotax idea until you’ve spoken to the guys at OVRP, they’ll help you figure something out

[Christian Fox]

Glad you had fun at OVRP. It’s our home track and a great place. Rotax is where it’s at if you want good size fields to race. No engine package is perfect, but Rotax motors are tanks and very reliable. That said, this is a tricky time to get into Rotax, especially on a limited budget. There are a lot of changes to the engine package for this year. That’s what EVO is; it’s a new carb, coil/e-box, exhaust manifold and wiring harness. The changes improve the performance to the point that you won’t be competitive without them. Also, for 2016, cylinders manufactured before 2011 will not be allowed, so if you look for a used motor, it would be wise to find one with a newer cylinder (2011 and newer cylinders are denoted by a two letter code stamped on the intake side of the cylinder, pre-2011 have a number stamped there). Vintages don’t need to match, in fact the best Rotax motors are a hodge-podge of different parts from different motors. It’s not hard to find decent used motors, but look for one sold bare without a carb or coil; there is no reason to pay for the older stuff when you will need the Evo parts anyway. You can expect to pay around $1,000 to $1,500 for a decent bare motor and another $1,000 or so for the Evo parts. I can’t see it being done for less than that.

The guys at OVRP are super helpful and know a ton. Just speak with Tim, Peter, or Chris and they will get you headed in the right direction.

 

 

[Christian Fox]

Not nearly enough data out there yet as so few have received their micro upgrade kit. You can’t possibly draw any conclusions yet. Couple that with the fact that micro drivers are all over the place in terms of ability and it’s further complicated. I will know soon enough. I know what my kid/motor combo is capable of at our home track, so a back-to-back will be pretty straightforward. In another thread, Mark from Arizona said a couple of drivers had brand new Evos, but both were faster when they swapped the upgrade parts over to their prevos. Hardly a conclusion, but I truly believe a really good, part selected prevo will smoke a stock evo (unless you win the lotto with your stock motor).

[Christian Fox]

Rob, I’m sure you are correct in regard to the cylinder question, but Canada and the US have had different regulations before. Canada was on full-size Minimax chassis a year before the US, and Canada doesn’t allow the use of soft axles for Micros. Mark is correct that in the official rules sheet it is worded in such a way that it could be interpreted as only new (not upgraded) Evos would require newer cylinders. The Canadian bulletin made it pretty clear, but I think Maxspeed will have to issue something similar to make it crystal clear.

[Christian Fox]

Mark, it’s going to have to be legal for micros to run tiny jets; Rotax cannot afford to have EVOs running way too rich and being outgunned by old Max motors. For all the bs about the carb being super easy to tune, and every package running great on a 130…clearly that’s not the case, and if they ever hope to sell a new motor, they will have to let them be tuned to be competitive.

[Christian Fox]

Thanks Rob. I was told the mini/micro cylinder ban would only apply to national events (Grand Nationals and Pan Am) for this year. Regional Rotax sanctioned series will still allow use of pre 2011 barrels if they so choose. Next year, only letter coded barrels for any event.

[Christian Fox]

Absolutely f#cking ridiculous. I really hope they don’t do the same thing in the US. They mandate a cyclinder change 3 weeks before the season starts? I had heard hints of the cylinder change for next year, but how can they do that now? I just had a Micro re-built for the upcoming season…guess what…it has a 2009 cylinder. There is no way a non-upgraded Micro will keep up with an upgraded motor or a new EVO, so there is no point trying to run a Prevo. Unbelievable. I really should just buy a Mini Rok. Eff rotax

[Christian Fox]

If an EVO micro upgrade really does increase by hp~1.3, that should even the motors out a bit, which is something BRP wants to accomplish. Marginal differences in horsepower between different motors are diminished as baseline hp increases. A national level prevo micro will make close to 8hp now, an average prevo micro is around 7hp. In other words, it’s not even close.

[Christian Fox]

Ah, that makes more sense, Mark. Thanks

[Christian Fox]

A bit strange that Evo parts are available at retail, but demand for upgrade kits clearly has not been satisfied. I think delayed implementation is inevitable.

[Christian Fox]

I think the DD2 comes stock with a 145, and micro, mini, jnr, snr all come with a 130. I wouldn’t worry about sticking that motor with the 130, if anything, I’d imagine you will want some leaner jets. We have to forget everything we’ve learned about the vhsb 34; the new carb has completely new internals and the jetting will be very different. Supposedly the tuning window is much wider with the new carb and nailing the perfect jet isn’t nearly important.

[Christian Fox]

Don’t pour gas in there. Just leave the drain bolt out and tip the motor sideways up against something and let it drain overnight. After, just put the drain bolt in and put 100cc of oil or ATF in there and you are good to go. No need to take out any other bolts to check the fill level. It’s just splash lubrication in there, it doesn’t need to be super exact.

[Christian Fox]

nothing special needed; motor oil or automatic transmission fluid is fine

[Christian Fox]

I can guarantee you there will be many, many track owners/managers uttering the phrase “it’s not really like Kart Life” when a new family stops by the track. As a relative newcomer to the sport, I can honestly say this show would have given me pause when we decided to make the jump to outdoor karting. Between  equipment, travel, and the level of knowledge required to be even remotely competitive, the sport is intimidating enough without the overblown fake drama and douchebaggery seen in this show.

And as far as the club race vs. “national” race thing…we need to give that a rest. There is plenty of stuff going on at any race, and the average viewer could not tell the difference.  In the episode where Malukas has to start from the back, it was what, a nine driver field? Do you really think that seems impressive to a non-karting viewer? Is that really a “national” level race? The average viewer sees nine kids on go karts and a few parents and tuners leaning on a fence. We live in a country where there are high school football stadiums that seat 17,000.

[Christian Fox]

My kid hears the “go-karting isn’t a sport” line all the time. That’s frustrating for a 10yr old to hear when he puts so much thought and effort into a sport he loves. It’s especially tough because, unfortunately, so much of a boy’s social being revolves around sports. One benefit I’m seeing from this show; a few kids at school have been watching it and now realize karting isn’t driving bumper cars at a carnival.

[Christian Fox]

Ray, I agree with you, but the producers’ agenda is not to grow the sport of karting, it’s to get ratings by making the it look like a circus. It’s not a documentary. They want karting dads yelling at each other and pulling donuts in their corvettes, not a dad and his kid talking about chassis set up.

Newsflash: to the average viewer a “national” level karting event still looks like a county fair. There’s plenty of drama at any race anywhere. I’ve seen fights break out at indoor karting for gawd’s sake. That said, I don’t blame the producers for focusing on the high-price stuff.

And I don’t think people have a problem per se with what some people pay in karting (I don’t), but it is clear the show chooses to show the divide that exists. Like I wrote before, in the first 20 seconds they have dads dropping big numbers, and then in the preview for the next episode they show some mom crying because her family can’t spend more. The 99% vs. 1% appears to be a theme the producers want to explore.

But, yeah, I’ll still watch…

[Christian Fox]

Brian, of course you are correct about ethanol attracting moisture. But regardless of what fuel we use, we will drain the fuel and clean the carb after every race day at the track. We don’t consider this a bother, just standard operating procedure. I never use fuel more than a day or two old anyway. You will never have any ethanol issues if you do this. Karting is so time consuming and expensive I don’t take any chances with the fuel or fuel system. This is less of a hassle than tracking down ethanol free fuel or race gas, especially when I like the tuning ease of pump gas with ethanol anyway. My leaf blower and weed whacker are a different story; they’d run  better if I treated them like my karts instead of throwing them in the barn when I’m done with them.

And Mark, if you have easy access to both, why not test it? There is no magic bullet fuel. Any 91-93 octane gas, with ethanol or not, will eventually give you the same performance, it’s just a matter of how much tuning it takes to get there.

[Christian Fox]

“Blueprinting” a spec motor, in my small, relatively inexperienced world, simply means having a motor builder take apart, go through and reassemble the motor more carefully than Luigi/Hans did at the Iame/Rotax factory. This should be a $300 or so job, and worthwhile in my opinion. If your builder starts swapping parts and dyno testing, this is no longer “blueprinting”, it’s “part selection” (and where things get very expensive). For $1,200 I would expect a lot more than a tear-down/re-build.

[Christian Fox]

I’ve got to disagree with you on ethanol Brian. If you keep your carb clean after every day at the track, you won’t have any problems. Rotax motors are tanks, and they are designed to handle 10% ethanol fuel. Guys here in the northeast run 93 pump almost exclusively and never have any ethanol related issues. The person I trust most in the karting industry loves pump gas for Rotax and thinks race gas is just a way for events to make a little extra money.

[Christian Fox]

You really should be able to get the same rpms with either; it’s just going to be easier and take much less time with pump gas. The tuning window is just broader. We can get above 10k with either, but it just takes more trial and error with race gas. When I wrote that we always get better performance with pump I really should have written we get better performance with much less tuning. Your carb tuning can be a little off and it won’t affect your performance, whereas race gas isn’t as forgiving. I’ve never used any race gas other that MS93, so I don’t have any info on 98 octane fuel.

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