To further bump the thread, here is the “news” i had alluded to earlier, in the form of a full presentation dossier about the category
We have a one hour test with the four engine manufacturers this afternoon, in Franciacorta, with their respective OKN Prototypes for final validation 
Good luck with testing! May your pistons remain in their cylinders.
The PDF makes a compelling pitch, I do like the weight savings which might even apply in the US in masters\senior categories.
Couple of takeaways are the lack of an upper price limit and a longer homologation period to increase value to the consumer. Those are two thing that would add value. The former perhaps may not be feasible…
What are the criteria for the validation testing and also… why limited to merely one hour?
We specify 6 years homol. period for the OKN, precisely for cost saving reasons. Everyone agreed it was necessary.
Regarding price, the target is to hover slightly bellow an OK-J, from preliminary values provided to us. (EUR 2,500)
Reminder that max carb price (excluding VAT/ Tax) is EUR 200, as per the homol. regulations, so that is fully regulated.
1 hour because no one is keen to show their hand too much at this stage. Even if we gave them 3 hours, they are only gonna run the tests necessary to them which cannot be ran on the dyno.
Its the racing universe at the end of the day 
Might I suggest that we send each of the manufactures samples to me for “evaluation” 
Although not for tomorrow, i also suggest y’all sit tight for now on the “easy evaluation” proposal. You may get surprised 
I’m getting serious “10 Key Points to KF” vibes.
It’s a dreadful document on many levels. Making promises the fia can’t possibly ensure. The thing about getting a chance to be ‘noticed’ is one of the lamest things I’ve ever seen in a promotional kart document. Laughable. Do our class because you might get ‘spotted’? For what and by who? How about having a class that’s worth racing in because it’s just badass instead?
Two pictures of the president, why? A picture of Hamilton is a Formula Super A, why? If the fia were bringing back FSA then maybe we’d be onto something. So many errors on so many levels. I could go through them all, but I just don’t have the energy any more, so I’ll try to refrain from commentating much more.
So close… FIA… so close… maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t. Just coulda been something so much more. There was a brief moment where I thought "actually I might try this… " and then the 15k rev limit hit me and I remember sitting ont he straight at PFI in KF thinking “god I hate this rev limit with every fibre of my body” lol. Repulsive
@KartingIsLife Imagine if it 30mm carbs, 125cc, no rev limt. and the FIA were like “Look, we did it because we can. You can choose your lame hobby classes no one cares about with your ‘grand finals’… or you can do this… your choice” You know which party I’d rather go to…and you to 
I just don’t see a non rev limited package being adopted by people these days.
Some of your frustration might be from conflating your own personal preferences with where the marketplace is. We’re not really the intended demo for this (is my assumption) 
I wonder if the phone number at the end is a direct line…
Currently
I am guessing these are the engines for euro championship? Why do they need to be marketable at all? I am assuming the racers in that series just drive what they are told and don’t ask too many questions. If the euro ladder says jump, you say how high?
To Alan’s point, I get his passion but at the same time I can’t be the only kart racer who literally could not care less about engine package. Fast or slow or whatever is fine. The racing’s the thing. Maybe Alan is kind of an outlier from a purist standpoint. Or maybe he’s just nostalgic for something that cannot be replicated for a variety of reasons (unless the manus want to lose money).
Which brings up another question… when they develop an engine, how many units do they need to sell to break even and do they?
Karting can’t possibly be much more than a rounding error to a company like Rotax, which primarily makes airplane and boat engines?
We’ve both raced CIK classes, we both give up our time (and money) to promote karting… we absolutely are a target for the FIA with regard to OK-N. Whether we choose to race it or not doesn’t matter. 100cc karting only came back because of people like us endlessly promoting and talking about it.
The FIA does not haeva good stadning within the karting community. If they don’t have cheerleaders OK-N will be a struggle to promote. You might like OK-N more than I, but the point about target markets is larger than mere actual cometitors. The FIA need to ‘create’ a demand, not simply supply one. This is the key aspect to this.
This I agree with, and its a change in function because historically the karts they regulated was all there was, then rotax came along.
And honestly I can’t see how could they create a demand.
@Simone_Perego is the World Cup idea meant to be similar to the Rotax Grand Finals. You qualify from your national category and everything except for travel is funded for the World Cup event? That might create demand, but still limited. Maybe the world cup winner could get a factory drive with Tonykart or something.
No, not quite. The FIA wants to re-introduce their engines and classes into national competition and be embraced more by the general karting public away from Rotax and X30. It isn’t a case of 'racing whatever is on the table. The FIA are trying to compete with Rotax/X30 at national level with this new project. It has to be remebered FIA classes used to ubiqitous throughout karting right down to club level. It’s hard to describe how different karting used to be.
And they have to be marketed, everything has to be marketed.
There’s a cultural layer to karting that that people may miss out on when they don’t care at all about engine package. Engine packages do matter because they embody cultural valkues that people have. To me that’s like saying music doesn’t matter. it’s just beats and frequencies. They add emotional content to the racing experience beyond the mere act of racing. It matters a lot.
It’s pretty simple. Ballsy marketing.
That’s an interesting perspective and I hadn’t considered that. I am one of the rare ones who is not particularly curious about mechanical stuff. Maybe I’m the outlier!
Refer to @Alan_Dove 's first paragraph in response to @Bimodal_Rocket. That is the correct answer.
Independent of the World Cup, the main goal is to have a product with a running cost which is lower than the current monomake packages available on the market, along with providing a sporting format which limits competition costs (like two days event, one chassis, one engine…)
If it costs less to run, you will be able to run it harder and for longer. That is the goal.
Moreover, i believe allowing open tuning within the package would reduce the necessity to rent engines (for national/regional racing, which the product is aimed at), which has today reached an inexplicable cost (personal opinion, putting the FIA aside)
Hol up. Why in the name of Wankle would Rotax/x30 play along? This sounds like the FIA wants broader adoption of this package to eat away at the rotax/x30 stranglehold on club/regional racing?
If people like the x30/rotax, why? Presumably they (IAME) is one of the providers of the new engine package?
When you have another test, invite Alan Dove on behalf of KartPulse.