LO206 on 2-stroke chassis: cheaper, but better?

Background info, looking for an LO206 as my first kart.

So I found this kart for sale online, and it seems to be an OTK 2-stroke chassis. The owner is offering it for sale either with a Parilla 100cc or an X30.

I was wondering: can I buy this kart, sell the Parilla, and replace it with an LO206? Would it be too stiff, or somehow bind the engine up? I’m thinking that since there’s a 100cc engine on there, it shouldn’t be too stiff for a 4-stroke. It’s also an OTK chassis, which has tons of support here in the Midwest.

Would I be better off buying something like this Energy Kart, which probably has less local support?

All insight is appreciated. Thanks!
~Ali

Personally I’d buy the roller and a new engine. Why buy an engine you don’t need and then have to deal with rebuilding it to sell it?

Lots of 4 stroke chassis for sale right now. Hell I have a 17 VLR chassis ran by my daighter(jr class) for 2 season I would let go real cheap.

Interested. Where do you live?
Drop me a PM with price and info if you can.

I would think that the engine is in good working order. I picked this mostly because selling the 100cc will give me some money back, which I desperately need starting out.

Id like to drop a PM but something has changed and I can’t figure it out. I’m I. Bakersfield, Cen cali

If it’s a fresh engine, and it’s cheap, sure. If it needs rebuild, that’s a hassle but if the price is right…

Click on Ali’s name… this pops up a window with the ability to PM (in case you didn’t know).

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Both of these are also very far away. You said you’re from the Chicago area, and shipping a whole kart is going to cost a lot of money. I would talk to a kart dealer in Chicago or the surrounding area and see what they have for sale. The two shops that I can think of that I would recommend are Viking Kart Products and Franklin Motorsports. Viking is based around Chicago, and Franklin is in Wisconsin so it’ll be a bit further away but Jamie usually has stuff in the showroom to check out.

I spoke to the guy from VKP, and I saw he had a Merlin LO206 for $1900. If possible, I want to go with an even lower price, but this is acceptable too.

My main question was if I acquired that OTK Redspeed, would the 206 fit well, and would the chassis be too stiff?

It’s question that come up a lot. Generally speaking, “two stroke chassis” work perfectly fine with four stroke engines. They can, have and will continue to be tuned to the front.

A lot (Not all) of the differences between “four stoke” and “two stroke” variants of chassis come down to ergonomics and cost effectiveness.

The biggest challenge is that the rear seat bracket and or crossbar behind the seat with “two stroke chassis” can make mounting a bit of a pain. That problem was solved years ago with the availability of engine mounts that allow sufficient offset to the right side of the kart. That’s the ergonomics part.

The cost effective part is that generally four stroke karts have less in the way of adjustability, less fancy components and wheels etc.

If the kart is in good condition I would have absolutely no reservations in running it with a 206. Especially starting out.

Like anything, there are exceptions. By all means if you can get a good deal on a four stoke chassis go for it.

Also consider the rationale of anyone insists you must have a 206/four stroke specific chassis.

$1900 is pretty cheap for a solid kart. Like I said, you would still have to ship the other two karts out to you which will not be cheap, that’s my only concern about the other two.

In terms of “2-stroke” vs “4-stroke” karts, they’ll both be fast. At the CKNA Grand Nationals, Alex Kardashian was on a 2017 Top Kart Twister and ran up front until the very last lap of the weekend. A good 2-stroke frame won’t be any slower than a good 4-stroke one, especially when you’re starting out.

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Unfortunately you can’t just assume that an industrial based 4 stroke engine, LO206, Honda GX, Clone, can be fitted to a particular 2 stroke chassis.
In contrast to the 2 stroke engines, the drive chain on these engines runs down the left side of the engine and so is ‘inboard’ of the inner engine mount chassis rail.
As James has suggested, dependent on the particular chassis design, there may well be insufficient radial clearance between the axle and the rear chassis cross tube for the axle sprocket.
Typically chassis with the rear cross tube running at right angles to the chassis centre line will be ok. but definitely a point to check.

The 2 cycle gods might blow a fuse, but other than that, I see no problem. You might look into the chain and sprocket positioning situation.

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At our club, www.ckrc.com, we have decent size grids of Briggs Senior(20+) and Briggs Masters (16+). A few have re-used Tony, Esprit, FA 2 cycle chassis to great success and haven’t had any clearance issues bolting on a Briggs motor. Since 2015, we have run on Mojo D2’s (7.1 rears), Vega Blues and most recently the harder Vega Green (6.0) and the Tony karts have worked good on all of them.
John K

I originally was going to race tag when I was getting back into the sport. Once I found out we were adding another little one to the family (ironically the day I came home from the swap meet) I quickly decided I was going to run 206. I was still using the same chassis I was running the tag on and I finished 3rd in the championship out of 24. I would say if you can get the engine to fit on the frame then you should be good. Just get out and practice. Many of the karts at our club are ex 2 cycle chassis and are very competitive.

Here’s a picture from the Tony website. That rear crossmember is what I’m talking about.[quote=“John_Kwong, post:16, topic:4901, full:true”]

I have used a few different former 2 cycle chassis in my Briggs racing pursuits. I have found that as long as there is about 1.5 inches clearance between the rear seat crossmember and the bearing hanger the chain will run without hitting that cross member. Also running the chain outboard on the clutch and with the right off-set mount will give the chain clearance for the seat support.

5 posts were merged into an existing topic: US and European Chassis for Four Stroke Karting