Our Local track has gone from 2 or 3 Senior LO206 karts last year to a field of 10-12 on a regular basis. I consider myself new to 206 having run 2 strokes for a while and 206 only occasionally last year
I am looking for input on what is typically done for post-race inspection at the local level and above. Our local track checks weight and tires but nothing else. Should they be doing more?
Here is a list of items we have seen at club level.
-slide opening measurements always (junior classes)
-carb jet
-carb inlet bore
-rocker arm length
-push rod length
-flywheel key
-fuel sample
-spark plug (visual)
-max RPM
-check for air leaks at carb and intake manifold
-inspect muffler for damaged or missing baffles
The following items less often, season final or bigger club day
-cylinder head gasket thickness
-valve angle/ depth
-cam timing
-ignition timing
WOW, that is an extensive list and some of these things would appear to require a degree of disassembly.
How are max rpms checked if the kart doesn’t have an onboard tach?
Yes, they should be doing a lot more to ensure the platform remains fair and fun. Brian has a good start. I would use that list for this year and then work towards getting a tech man qualified this winter. Steve Vermeer (the CKNA tech guy) does quite a few classes over the winter where he can teach your tech person everything they need.
You dont want to use the onboard tach anyway. The driver can set a max RPM read out on their tach and then you would never know if they were cheating. I used to set mine at 6000 back in my nefarious days. To tech properly, you hook up your own tach and then rev the engine up. At national events in the past, this was done on the stand post-race. It should be spot checked pre-race too.
Off in the weeds:
The pre-race check is important because the rev limiter was often cheated by reducing spark plug gap so much that it would spark even when it was supposed to be limited by the coil. This would allow you to rev up past the rev limiter. The problem with only checking post race is that often times through the course of the race ,the spark plug gap would burn up and open up enough to cause the limiter to work again. Then, voila, you pass post race tech.
That’s interesting to know about the spark plug gap. I have never had it checked per-race.
I’m a big supporter of tech inspections. We work very hard to keep competitive on a reasonable budget and anything done to keep it from becoming a full blown battle of the wallets is important to me.
I’m more than happy to buy a new head gasket 3 or 4 times a year.
If your club is using the Briggs ruleset, there is no gap in the plug. They switched to a new plug a few years back because of this cheating.
If you don’t think it can be done on this plug, I got some ocean front property in Arizona for you. The switch to this plug had nothing to do with the gap trick. It had to do with the resistor style trick of the older plug.
It’s actually easier to do on this plug and often accidentally happens when they get damaged in shipping/handling. I’ve put a few new ones in that rev to the moon.
To be clear, I am not condoning this behavior. I’m saying tech person can check plugs before and after to prevent cheating.
Interesting. I guess I’ve been out of 206 for too long.
The downside of cheating was always too much for me to even consider it. Once you’re branded a cheater . . .
I agree, John. I have seen a ton over the years.
That is the beauty of 206. A good base package with black and white rules. It just still takes good/thorough tech to prevent cheating.
Thank you all for your input. If you were to advise a track owner on the top 3 tech things to consider, what would you advise?
Also…do tracks typically tech only the top 3 or at random?
Remember though as a good tech guy told me years ago. We are not trying to catch cheaters. We are trying to assure a level playing field. LO206 has so many new karters. They may not realize the spark plug was damaged in shipping. They may have missed the seal in slide cap when putting it back together. They may have bought a used engine that had legality issues they are not aware of. They may have been advised poorly about something being legal or not
For any of the junior classes the slide opening is #1.
Beyond that I would recommend mixing it up a bit more than 3 things over the season. Many of these can be checked with minimum tooling.
-carb jet
-flywheel key
-Spark plug
-max RPM
