SuperKarts

[Warwick]

That 1/2hr is the longest race in NZ,I believe they ran a 2 hour in Oz and that is the longest I have heard of.

A 250GP engine does about 500-600 km to a set of pistons and normally has the rings changed at 1/2 that on a normal day we will do about 100km at a meeting over 5 races,now if you are averaging 130-140km an hour how long a race can you do before the engine goes off and the tyres fall apart.

[tassuperkart]

The 250cc single cylinder "National" (IC/E) class has been declining rapidly in Oz now for the last couple of years. This is largely due to the enormous resurgence of interest in 125 Gearbox and 250 International (F/E) classes as a result of the cheapness and relative ease of aquiring Ex GP bike engines such as RS125 & 250 Hondas, TZ 125 & 250 Yamahas and a plethora of new purpose built F/E engines from various European and U.S. manufacturers.
IC/E engines are being pushed way beyond their original design limits and the amount of money being poured into these pedantic and fragile engines is astronomical to say the least, some would even suggest foolish.The ongoing running costs of these engines is pushing the class into oblivion as more and more people are seeing the benefits of running GP bike engines specifically designed for road racing with attendant high outputs and rpm's coupled with almost bulletproof reliability. The orioginal intent of the IC/E's was to enable a competitor to compete in a really hairy chested variety of kart with relative reliability and affordability compared to the very fast but fragile and costly Rotax 256's and a couple of difficult to operate and unreliable parallel twin TZ Yamahas running about. Unlimited modifications have been allowed to these singles over the years where if they had been kept as a stock and stock appearing category then their future should have been assured.
Expect to see IC/E machines virtually disappear in Oz in the next couple of years.
A good 125cc machine is can produce times competitive with most IC/E's on shorter tracks and can still mix with the IC/E's on longercircuits with a good pilot aboard.
I hope that helps.
E

[the man]

So not keeping the 250cc singles stock standed has killed the class

[tassuperkart]

Ummm..... I wouldnt exactly say that that was the main reason but it would be fair to say that having the class unlimited has contributed well to its decline and eventual (I believe) demise.
I think the easy access and affordability of the GP bike engines at present has hit the class the hardest.
Consider this, I run both RS125 & RS250 Hondas. Both are '92 models and are pretty much stock apart from some trick pipes on the 250. You can buy a reasonable RS250 of this year for aroung $2000 to $3000 ready to go. You may be only a couple of horsepower down on the really quick guys but bang for buck you cant go wrong.
Any IC/E engine will usually come at around the $2500 dollar mark if it is any good at all with all the unreliability and brittleness that comes as a matter of course with these moto-x engines being asked to rev well over 10 grand at WOT for the better part of a race.
There is also a gulf of difference between a clunker and a really good single in terms of dollars sunk in for performance out......ridiculous really.
My RS250 has only the addition of really good pipes and in straightline terms gives little away to the very best stuff around. It represents really good "bang for buck"
The same goes for the 125. I run the 125 dead stock with the factory pipe and here in Tassie has little drama keeping up with the best IC/E's we have here except on the longer straight of Symmons Plains. These engines can be had for well less than $1200 ready to go. Try getting 41 horsepower out of a CR125 M-X engine for that cost including the engine to begin with!!
It is a shame about the IC/E's tho. I feel that they do have a place in the scheme of things but need to have compulsory rev limiters fitted to limit the engines to say 8500rpm. This would allow the existing hotted up stuff to continue running with some tweaks to lower the power curve and make it real attractive for a dude to find a clunker old engine and cobble it to a frame and go racing real quick for a whole season without lifting the barrell.
Now that would make the class attractive as an entry level 250 class again yeah?
E

[Warwick]

Good ideas in that post I run a TZ250 and my running costs aren't much more than the top 250 nationals and unless its a short tight track normally always beat them

We only restrict the 250 singles on carb size,when Paul Hillman raced here in his 125 he qualified 4th in a field of about 10 250 singles.

Coming over for our nationals Tassuperkart?

[the man]

so the rules shoyld be looked at again to look at the problems and should be fixed. Something like Tassuperkart said about rev limits and stuff like that

[yelodwg]

Looking at the WSC 2002 List of Participants - http://users.cyberzane.net/rforker/W...rticipants.htm -on the Forker Brothers site, shows 31 F/E drivers and 36 IC/E drivers. This is for the US series and obviously doesn't represent what is happening Down Under

Tom Stephens
www.kartfinder.com

[tassuperkart]

Yeah Tom, that is a very valid point with IC/E in the U.S.
They still seem to bother with singles. Mebbe bits and goodies for them are better value than for us but I dont have any explaination for why there are so many IC/E's (still) running over there but dying in the arse here. Shame really! Sure are fun to drive!

As I have said b4, in initial purchase and overall running costs the F/E's are a very cost effective choice.
This is particularly true of 125's as this category is easier to handle in all ways to the F/E's and a crapload less intimidating that an F/E in full flight.
Cheap, high horsepower engines that seem to last for ages.
I use an absolute maximum RPM (mostly) of between 12200 to 12400 and I run half a season on one ring/s. I dont even bother lifting the barrel/'s anymore just to check.
I do use a good quality Parilla inline thermostat on the 125 tho, to maintain constant temps and faster warmup.
I have one of those blasted Golf radiators on the F/E and it is not good enough for the job so I dont bother with thermostats on the 250 (yet).

Speaking of rules, I am the tasmanian delegate to the Cams national Superkart Council and I have been an advocate of changes to the IC/E class for many years but it always seems to fall on very deaf ears.
I dont think that carby restrictions are really that successful as a good tuner can always get the revs out of an engine pretty much irrespective of the size of the carby and the ridiculous revs these things are asked to run at in order to produce good power is what mostly kills them.

My proposal of a generic rev limiter for IC/E would still allow a guy to run his million dollar hand grenade special with all the percentage balanced cranks, trick one off close ratio gearboxes and always well over 10,000 rpms with a piston life of perhaps 2 meetings iffen your brave with little more mods than adding a couple of centimeters to the pipe belly section or headpipe. At about 8500 the thing would last a full season on a single ring!
Now how hard is that?
"No! never! would never in a million years limit my engine blah blah blah",,,, that still rings in my ears after many years and the class slowly implodes into oblivion as we speak, dragged down by spiralling tuning costs and ever increasing unreliability! Bah!!!!

I never thought of running in N.Z. tho Wawrick!
Wouldnt that be cool! I get eaten alive here and then I would get eaten alive over there by Steve and Wayne (Crossland) and god knows who else! hahahaha
I might head over that way some time tho, you never know! Got a spare 125????? LOLOL
Hillman is a very, verrryyy good 125 builder and steerer and he would not have too much trouble dealing like that most 250 single runners. It appears that he seems to like to add jungle juice to his fuels tho hahahaha.
Havent heard of him racing in a while now tho.

L8tr guys
E

[Warwick]

Hillman won the 125 national class here then (Suprise) he got DQed for illegal fuel.

As far as I am aware the Crosslands haven't raced here for quite some time,not at the last four nationals anyway,last year Steve didn't even know what date they were on even though he was playing in the band in the same city.

Anton Stevens normally does and he runs about 3 sec a lap quicker than me on a 3.5km circuit,last year after killing his Rotax twice he drove my TZ in the GP and put it off the track after 5 laps.

Brian Stockman is meant to be coming this year with his kart converted to methanol (as allowed by our rules)unfortunately I will miss all this,as our sidecar nationals are the same weekend,if my 250 wasn't in pieces you could have run that.

[woodyracing]

how heavy is a complete 250 twin superkart ?
and anyone know the 0-60mph time ?

[yelodwg]

Hey "E", hadn't looked at your profile before to see who you were, er, are! I would surely like to know why the IC/E class is still kicking over here. Maybe you could bring it up on the 250 List. I just lurk there as I don't have a 250, even though I do P1's site.

I wonder if there are some different rules over here (haven't read thru ALL the WSK rules) that help the IC/E reliabilty?

Or is it just us American's with our just go with it and whatever attitude

Tom

IC/E would be my choice, but I wasn't aware of the reliability problems.

[Warwick]

woodyracing check the website yelodwg posted and look under "about 250 superkarts" it has 0-60,1/4 mile etc.

I weighed in at 224kg at this years nationals with 1/2 a tank of gas,rolling chassis alone must be 140kg,our minimun weight is 205kg altough we may look at changing this to bring us into line with Australia.

[woodyracing]

I found the weights and a chart somewhere comparing power to weight ratios but I didnt find the 0-60 and 1/4 mile times.

Also, how come superkarts seem to be grouped with bike racing? I know they have bike engines, but so do a lot of other race cars.

Also the British Superkart Association website at http://www.superkart.org.uk/ doesn't contain too much info about the classes and how to get into it. It just mentions the calenders of various championships.

[yelodwg]

Woodyracing , the link's ("About 250cc Superkarts") there on the left side of Rob Forker's Good Times Racing 250 Superkart Team site . Here's the direct link: http://users.cyberzane.net/rforker/ABOUT250RACING.htm

Scroll down for times.

Grouped with bike racing? Grouped where?

I see what you mean about the B.S.Asso. site and "class"/"how to get into Superkarting" info. But they do have a good # of email addresses and phone #'s at the bottom of the home page. You can have yourself a field day with those!

Also go to our links page at www.kartfinder.com/links.htm and go to the Superkart links. Especially http://www.ozsuperkart.net/ and check out Rob Forker's links.

You may have a tendency to just want to go to British sites, which I normally would understand, but Superkarts are what I would call a World Class. At Laguna Seca's World Superkart Challenge race this past September, the drivers were from all over the world. That's one of the things that's neat about Superkarts!

[tassuperkart]

Hey Tom
heheheh I have been logged into 10/10ths for quite some time but I had forgotten about it untill I surfed here from god only knows where quite recently and spied the superkart forum, I couldnt resist!!
Umm WSK IC/E karts are not much different from Oz or European stuff really from what i have read from the original drafts of the rules. I havent read the latest copy of the rules sos I will ask J.R if he can mail me a copy yeah?
As far as why the F/E's are going strong here is an economic one and that I just think that us Aussies are grasping and running with the concept that we can build a good F/E machine and run it for a season for the same, if not less money that a good IC/E.
The GP engines are really quite cheap and readily available. As i mentioned before, a good 92-94 RS250, (admittedly a bit old now but still very good), only sets us back about 2000-2500 AUD. This amount of stock horsepower quite easily deals harshly with most of the 256's and will satisfy the majority of punters and only the seriously fast guys bother with the pricey "B" kit stuff and beyond. This is seriously affordable performance.
You just cannot build a decently fast ICE for that amount.
Furthermore, the reliability of a really quick ICE is fearfully bad compared to any F/E including older 256's.
I re-read back my painfully long posts and i feel like I am really pushing the GP bike engine thing but its really just an observation on what is going on in OZ. It wasnt that long ago in Oz that the 125 class was considered dead and most of the twins stayed home but the resurgence of these 2 classes has been spectacular to say the least at the direct expense of ICE and 80cc. Speaking of 80's, there is another money pit at the higher level. Jeezz those guys sink some dough into them.

Dont let my ravings deter you from an ICE tho Tom, At a saner level of tune the ICE's seem to last and perform very well but when push really comes to shove at the higher end of the sport then the amount of folding stuff necessary to build and keep running the singles seems to exponentially increase! It doesnt seem to matter how hard the Jap twins are hammered, they just keep going. Horses for courses I suppose!
Evan
Just my observations tho yeah?!!!!!