[Nik Goodfellow]

The biggest barrier to the OK engine is that it needs to be promoted by a non-commercial promoter. For the big euro races thats the CIK-FIA. For the UK its the MSA, France FFSA, Germany ADAC.

The US is almost completely manufacturer series, IAME, Vortex, Rotax. They have no reason to adopt a multi-manufacturer class. Although one of them could do what the UK did and tender it out to one manufacturer (UK chose Vortex but SKUSA would chose IAME). But it would be a risk and why bother. If they don’t run KZ (except for Supernats) which is monumentally more popular world wide why risk it on OK.

[Nik Goodfellow]

Mark,

Totally agree, but I’m not sure we should blame karting for societies problems ;)

[Nik Goodfellow]

I haven’t go three things, but three words “drop down bumpers”.

How North America is happy to see their kids pushed off the track at the first corner when Europe got rid of it overnight 2 years ago is beyond me.

My understanding is Maxspeed are implementing it next year but really it needs SKUSA to jump on it. The pushing at the first three corners of the Supernats was terrible. As the States doesn’t have an overall rule making body it would have to be taken on series by series but it would be nice if all the series could agree to do it as one.

And I’m not getting at the officials, they have an impossible job when the pushing comes from 7 or 8 rows back from the incident.

[Nik Goodfellow]

I believe Righetti Ridolfi tried to do wheels and couldn’t make it work because there is little heat transfer when compared to metallic wheels. This may be possible to overcome, or a combination of metal and composite.

[Nik Goodfellow]

Specifically talking about sprint racing –

If you want to sell internationally, you are fairly limited as composites can only be used in certain locations;

“CIK-FIA Technical Regulations

2.1.7 Composite Parts All parts made from composite material are forbidden on the kart, except for the seat, the floor, the chain guard and the rear brake disc protective pad.”

Rules in the US are somewhat more free but different for each series and in some case the series will ban a device as soon as they see them (for example SKUSA banning aero wheel covers).

So you will probably want to look into non-performance enhancing devices, like chain guards, datalogger mounts, chassis protectors, engine mounts(?) etc.

Some already exist;

http://koene.com/kart-parts/carbon-parts

I would personally like to see a well thought out seat application by someone who knows composites rather then someone who is from karting. Or tuning bars with flexibility in one plane but not the other.

 

[Nik Goodfellow]

http://www.electricmotorsport.com/

You can pick and choose your size of motor, then decide how long you would like to run for and pick your battery pack. The larger the charger you pick, the faster it will charge, assuming it doesn’t require three phase or 240V charging which you might not find at your local kart track. Either way you will waiting in comparison to adding gas.

 

One thing to keep in mind when designing an electric kart power train is that the torque is instantaneous, it doesn’t build up like a 2 stroke or even 4 stroke. So in my opinion you can get away with a lower powered motor and still get the same feeling or rush and you will find you will run a much smaller gearing to make use of that torque from zero rpm.

[Nik Goodfellow]

It technically works, but camber is much easier to measure then caster. So generally speaking “people” prefer an incremental increase and decrease of caster and camber they can adjust “infinitely” while looking at lasers.

But yes, what I meant was you had to turn the base plate 90 degrees.

[Nik Goodfellow]

Oh and make sure your height adjustment spacers won’t just fall through the 22mm hole.

[Nik Goodfellow]

22mm hole in the yoke.

The two M4 screws are 31mm P.C.D from the centre of the 22mm hole.

The OD is 40mm.

I vaguely remember testing them in 2008 0r 09 before CRG made them standard and I don’t think there was a problem fitting them, except the M4 mounting holes where 90 degree off, i.e side to side rather than front and back.
Remember you’ll need a longer kingpin bolt too.

[Nik Goodfellow]

Engines and karts are interchangeable. You could theoretically put a 2016 motor on a 2001.
Sorry I don’t know much about the PRD fireball, but I had a Mitox in 2001 and 2002.

[Nik Goodfellow]

Its a Tonykart Mitox 2000-2002, powder coated blue. You can tell it is pre-2003 due to the old style sidepod mounting bars configuration (angled rather then straight).

Back then FA kart didn’t exist but Kosmic has been around since the 90s’.

Looks to be mainly authentic components, with extended front for tall drivers. Back then tonykart ran tillet seats.

[Nik Goodfellow]

They are and always have been made by CRG. At one point they had their own design. I don’t know how much different they are now as the guy who started Maranello Kart (Armando Fillini) left and started ART GP.

 

I raced one of the originals in 2002.

[Nik Goodfellow]

Loosen the king pin bolt and tighten them up again without changing anything else.

More times than not this puts them back to equal.

 

[Nik Goodfellow]

Ha if you think GM needed buying out because of outsourcing then you really don’t understand the auto industry.

GM had (has?) a tremendous union contract that meant when sales dropped they couldn’t cut their overheads. Shutting down a factory didn’t mean they could lay off workers and they could hardly stop pensions.

Couple that with years of shoddy product (trucks are still on ladder frames with leaf spring suspension, huge panel gaps and steering seemingly not attached to the front wheels for crying out loud) and the rise of a superior products coming from across the world and they were bound to fail.

Ford on the other hand started bringing their vastly superior products from Europe (Focus, Fiesta, Fusion (Mondeo in Europe)) and sold off there more lucrative brands.

 

Anyway iKart doesn’t fit any of these models, its a prototype shop, more like a Roush or Shelby.

[Nik Goodfellow]

I think John is alluding to a mass produced product. As this is still a product in its infancy (at least it looks that way) then it is effectively a prototype shop and in house machining of parts probably will be cheaper. Although if he’s putting in 20 hours days he must be paying himself very little to make it cheaper.

There’s no need to automatically assume foreign built means crappy, the iphone is built in China after all.

And there’s no point in buying American because its American, buy it because its good, thats the only way the US manufacturing industry will rebuild itself.

Maybe John and I view it differently because we aren’t American.

Anyway good luck to iKart.

[Nik Goodfellow]

I may be a little bit of Mycron fanboy but the unipro software really lets the hardware down. You are just heavily limited with what you can do with it. I found myself exporting to excel to do most things useful with it.

However if all you want to do is look at RPM, Speed, Temps and G Force (and compare between drivers) then it is perfectly adequate. If you want to do anything a little more advance, like adding calculated channels or make you own charts then racestudio with the mychron is more useful to you.

Theres a good review of each capabilities at;

 

http://www.kartingasia.com/choosing-alfano-mychron-4-unipro-or-pi/

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