22 replies to this topic

[giner88]

i do like 2 strokes but they do seem to break alot more often, and they cost a hell of alot more to build and maintain. i think my friends rotax had to be rebuilt every 20 hours, and it had to have a proper seal to prove it was all legit. so its not something you can fo yourself. although there were the rules in Cyprus, but i imagine its the same in the UK

[86mayfair]

If it's a testing toy then you don't need to have it rebuilt that often, and even if it is a race engine you don't need to rebuild them that often but yeah they are higher maintenance. The rules are the same here, they have to be sealed to race but that's just to keep the playing field more even because there are some people out there spending some serious money. Someone I know was once experimenting with his Rotax Max and said it was revving to about 19k - Most only rev to 12.5 - 13 haha!! People tend to buy a new chassis every year too. At the end of the season they sell on the old chassis and if it won a few races they can get their money back to buy the brand new one. Engines can sell for silly money too: a brand new one costs about £1200, but you can often see them sold for more than 3x that if they were sucessful.

With karting you can go to both extremes but the best way to get the best of both is probably Club 100 - TKM 2 strokes on a slightly more robust chassis. Hire racing with very good karts and drivers and at a fraction of the cost because you don't have to pay for maintenance. Perfect!

Edited by 86mayfair, 30 January 2012 - 10:37 PM.

[nafnaforiginal12]

Slightly off topic but i'm building an off-road gokart (apologies for the giant pics) :

[giner88]

cool what engine is that? 270? 390? we build an off roader in Cyprus but it was just a normal kart with bigger wheels. i'll try n locate some pics

[nafnaforiginal12]

It's a gx390, im gonna be running a torque convertor with 3:1-0.43:1 gearing
Had a centrifugal clutch but it melted in just 10mins of use!
There's a vid on youtube:

not very fast because the gearing was so high it took a while to get going.

[dave1293gt]

The kart i am looking at is twin 160's. That offroader looks great but there isnt anywhere around me to use one. Our mosa welder at work runs a 390......... Hmmmmm
The old 2 stroke my mate had years ago was a 100cc parilla engine. It was a complete animal, but as i said we were only in carparks.
I am quite lucky that for the population of lincolnshire we have quite a few tracks within about 25 miles of where i live. Just so far the only one i have asked about owner drivering is ancaster.

[Black.Ghost]

I'm not very good, but I love karting. Buckmore in the wet was awesome fun! Too heavy, and mostly not good enough, to be competitive though.

I really want to build an off road buggy at some point as well, and my brother is interested so once he has a job that could be interesting!

[MaxAndPaddy]

Anyone else take their kids Karting?

Our teen goes weekly (dependent on behaviour at school) to the kids club at Scarborough, £10 to join then £12 a week. Theres around 8-10 teens that go so they get alot of track time. The spots involved with Redbull who are running some regional qualifiers to try and win a kids sponsorship deal

Great fun to watch geez they're good, the weight advantage they have means they challenge the adults times.