It depends highly on your location. The KT is very strong in parts of the midwest, has a little life on the west coast, but that’s the most of it from what I understand.
I’d say if you have a KT, and have people to race against, keep doing that until your situation changes. I think we’ll see the KT around in some form for some time.
I know one thing, the KT kept a lot of shops in business. It has to be blueprinting, and because so many people do that, out of the box it can’t compete. That fact alone, the revenue from blueprinting, pretty much, among other things, doomed the HPV. Another thing, with a KT there was too much variance in even the blew printed motors. No serious kart engine manufacturer casts the liner into the barrel of competitive engines.
What do you mean when talk about casting the liner into the barrel?
I can’t think of any kart engine that isn’t either an iron liner pressed into the barrel or in the case of shifter/gearbox engines they have a nikasil liner.
Is what you are talking about something else?
Did I miss speak? What I meant was, the barrel cast around the liner. That’s how they do it at Yamaha with a KT 100.
No I just misunderstood. I didn’t know that about the KT.
Here’s an honest question. Is there any reason to believe that IAME who manufactures the KA100 will break from it’s history of outdating and or replacing engines every 3 or so years?
They have been doing so since the 80s.
X30 has been around since at least 2012 (7 years), and there isn’t any evidence they have a new TaG replacement coming.
KA has been around several years in Australia, and next year will be its third year here in the States, and it’s only growing.
HPV/KPV was around for about a decade before it died off, and that wasn’t because IAME replaced it. It was because orgs went to the “4” exhaust and rebuild costs started going through the roof since you now had to spin the thing to 16k to make that pipe work.
Maybe before my time IAME was phasing engines in and out every 3 years, but since I’ve been racing, the Leopard was really the only one that IAME replaced with a newer and better version.
I think it’s worth nothing that often those changes were driven my homologation periods in Europe. From that perspective it’s a self fulfilling prophecy.
Generally it seems more brands are lining up the the markets’s demand for stable engine platforms with minimal changes.
Uniformity of equipment is the goal! Take out the mechanical side of the equation as much as possible. Spec kart, spec engine, spec pipe, spec tires. Let the drivers physical abilities determine the winner. Eliminate, as much as possible, all innovation!
I’m pretty sure, with today’s rules and specifications, I would have never done as well as I did.
There’s still innovation, it’s just nuanced. As I’ve said before, there’s still places for folks that want to tinker more, it’s just not as mainstream as it was before.
On the other side of the coin, done right with spec series (done right) you can have grids that cover the top ten in <0.20s like this:
It works out at 170" of distance between 1st and 10th. That’s ten karts squeezed into two kart lengths 
I’d say that kinda goes a long way in proving my point.
Al, so you would prefer an environment where builders can run free and the engines are not necessarily on parity?
As a racer that gives me the heeby-jeebies. That turns into a tech arms race, no?
Or am I misinterpreting your comment?
I’m just arguing the point, no judgement or anything.
Extrapolating my comment to the extreme and then saying that makes you nervous?
Of course there has to be rules, chief amongst them, weight divisions. A stock class should have an engine whose specifications match the original factory specs as specified in the rulebook. If the engine comes with a clutch, and/or a pipe, those should match the factory specifications. I’m not a big fan of that kind of package, but time marches on. Of course me being a pipe manufacturer had something to do with that.
Stock appearing, should be just that, stock appearing. I laugh at the 4 cycle guys because they had a rule that it had to appear “stock appearing” from no closer than 6 feet away.
When I started, there were 3 “stock” classes, all McCullough’s. Other than wheelbase, length and width, that was it. No clutch, header, pipe, brakes rules. Of course there were safety rules, helmets, jackets, bolts that had to be keyed. Engine packages (including engine clutch and pipe) did not exist. The HPV was the 1st class with those rules.
Now I’m sure that karting needs “spec” classes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I have to like them. lol I miss the “C open”, “B open”, “B limited”, “duel stock appearing McCullough’s”, and later “Mac 91 open”, “stock McCullough 101”. But then, when I think about how much trouble it was to work on Macs, I miss them less.
Lack of innovation, in the long run, stifles progress. Always trying to invent the better mouse trap. When I was heavily involved in racing, my 1st thought in the morning was “what can I do to go faster” and my last thought before falling asleep “what can I do to go faster”. “Sick”, I know.
Not sick at all. Just a different perspective. As I have little knowledge about these sorts of things, I would be a loser in a situation where engines aren’t spec as I don’t have skill in that area. I would need to hire a guy that could help me be competitive.
And that’s what bothers me. It seems like in that scenario, it adds a layer of complexity that some people would benefit from at the expense of others who lack the skill or $.
“Spec appearing” is an interesting term that I haven’t encountered.
Due to circumstances you wouldn’t be interested in, I use speech to text software, and sometimes it makes mistakes, and sometimes I miss those mistakes. Sorry. I do my best.[quote=“Bimodal_Rocket, post:34, topic:2948, full:true”]
Not sick at all. Just a different perspective. As I have little knowledge about these sorts of things, I would be a loser in a situation where engines aren’t spec as I don’t have skill in that area. I would need to hire a guy that could help me be competitive.
And that’s what bothers me. It seems like in that scenario, it adds a layer of complexity that some people would benefit from at the expense of others who lack the skill or $.
“Spec appearing” is an interesting term that I haven’t encountered.
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It is a tough balance. We have better race products than we had years ago. That comes from open competition to build a better widget. For the average guy that approach that is a detterent though. I have spent the last decade racing Spec Racer Ford and Spec Miata because I do not want to spend the time and money on a new, better part that knocks 0.1 seconds. This is because I know others have more time and money. I am coming back to karting next year and I doing LO206 spec’d down to the chassis. I like it because I will chase setup and driving ability. Also because it is a level my friend is comfortable competing. It seems best to have the open stuff at the national level. I do not know if the national level to support it right now. Of course maybe it is not strong because we do not have it. I did spend one year racing open shifters. At 40+ hp out of the 125 it was pretty easy to scrap an expensive engine in the blink of an eye.
