I’ve got a Margay ignite K3 and started using offset camber pills. After getting everything aligned and going out on track the pills both seem to shift and throw off the alignment. If I tighten the kingpin more the pill moves with my steering input. Any guidance on how to keep the pills in place?
I’d take the pill off and try to scuff up the yoke with sandpaper/scotch brite where it sits to give it some tooth for the pill to bite into and not spin.
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Do you have the right amount of kingpin spacers? Are the spindle bearings good? There should be no force moving those. Can you post some pics inside the “C” of the frame?
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It’s a pretty meh design. Wouldn’t have taken much effort to make them stay in place but they went super basic on the components. I’ve ran them twice and both times about had a seizure trying to make them stay in place.
Are the just cylinders? Not oval in shape to hold them in orientation?
Not familiar with that setup but it sounds like something might be together wrong? Typically the front end hardware “locks” in place by some method.
Older versions of caster pills are just rotating eccentrics with no method for locking them in place except the tension of the kingpin being tight. Merlins used to be like that and we occasionally had them twist around on-track.
Helped a kid on an old Arrow with one of these style fronts at an on-road endurance race this winter. It was a first for me and it sucked!!! Every time I would try to tighten the kingpin the pill would want to rotate and shift. Made setting camber/caster a PITA. Once it was locked down tight, it did stay.
If you make sure that the spindle spacers compress on the INNER RACE BUSHING of the bearings, you can crank down on kingpins pretty tightly. Make sure you’re not compressing the bearings, though… There should be a spacer inside the spindle barrel to keep the bearings apart, as well as either a skinny bushing or stepped spacer above and below to ensure the bearings don’t get crushed. My old Birel had a hex shaped ‘eccentric’. You can sometimes buy other styles if yours isn’t holding… I bought these to use:
These worked for me, but if they didnt’, I was going to buy the “perforated disc” style, and drill a single hole and tap for a allen head screw to hold. Usually there’s enough meat in the ‘diagonal’ to place a single or possibly opposite holes for the ‘new style’ eccentrics. Measure 3x, drill 1x…
Why everyone doesn’t use the 'Sniper" style, I’m not sure.
I ran a conversion kit on my son’s OTK for a season. Now we run CRG.
The snipers can be fragile and prone to drift. Trying to adjust camber without loosening the kingpin enough will result in a cracked top plate, over tightening the camber grub screws will also result in a cracked top plate. In fact, I cracked one this weekend doing just that…over tightened. Now if you under tighten the grub screws or kingpin when done you will usually see the kart gain some negative camber relative to where you last set it at.
All that being said, the independent adjustment between camber and caster sure is nice to have!
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Back in my day… we had pills that were at least oval shaped so they didn’t spin. Ignite ones seem to be just circles with no way to clock them. Lame.
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Thanks for all the replies. I went straight to the source and reached out to Margay. Turns out my issue was the placement of the hardware inside the C frame.
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I was wondering that. If the washers are too wide or in the wrong place it can turn the pill. It can also lock the steering down under load. It sucks when it happens.
Also, on the topic of sniper plates: Snipers SA1 Base Plate ONLY - HARDENED - Fastech-Racing
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So, what’s the proper order?
From top to bottom:
Kingpin nut
Thick washer
Pill
Frame
Spacers
Thin washer
Spindle
Thin washer
Spacers
Frame
Pill
Thick washer
Kingpin head
The important part was the washer thickness in order to get it to sit right.
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