I am not sure one he compound. I will look it up. It is very hard and seems to grip substantially less than the rental kart tires, oddly. I always assumed those were the hardest compounds available. Truth be told, the Hoosier look and to the touch feel softer than the hard rental tires. But, their grip is worse. I can push the rentals laterally till you start getting violent load associated hop. Not so sure about these Hoosiers.
For comparison, at our track here on a high 32/low 33 second track, the Ignite karts on R80s are 1.5+ seconds slower than 206 Masters on a normal club compound tire.
Well thatâs significant. Maybe TJ is right, donât blame the kart handling. Blame the n00b on weird tires.
1 Like
Iâm not saying it isnât the kart, but I am saying that youâve driven it 2 days total, havenât done much in the way of tuning, and thereâs wonky engine-related quirks afoot, so I just wouldnât totally write it off as a pile of garbage yet!
I hear ya. I am mainly venting my frustration. It is frustrating to buy a kart and have it behave in a way inconsistent with my previous experiences. Thereâs a bit of ego wrapped up in this. While I am not and will never be a fabulous kart god, I do want to win and want to roll well.
It was embarrassing, frankly, n00bing it up like that. It also rocked me a bit as I have become accustomed to running pretty well on anything I sit in.
Chalk this experience up to âongoing driver developmentâ.
I agree. I run Ignite with both R60 and R80 Hoosier. The R60 class is any make kart. It is dramatic how much less turn in there is with R80. Getting back to the throttle before turn in can help. Moving weight forward should help also.
Yeah you do. Top tip donât get digital scales that auto shut off after some seconds. Then you have to have someone running around each corner lifting the wheel off the scale to reset it every half a minute.
I have 4 digital IKEA scales going cheap if anyone wantsâŚ
Thank you. 
ââ:parachute:
20 chars
Is OVRP the place in New York?
Yup. Nice place in Cuddebackville. Really pretty area.
Got it. That is in my general region, but not what I would call close. Take the following with a grain of salt on the basis that I was never better than mid-pack.
I donât know what the back story is, or what you have done, but 90% of the mechanical side of racecraft is your setup. In reading through this thread, I have not seen much touching this but rather focusing on the last 10% that is the motor. What I believe you need is a practice day where you can just invest in setting up the kart. It sounds ridiculous, but I would gear you really high relative to what you would expect. I would be looking for a sweet spot where you dont think about the throttle, because youâre WOT the whole time. Delete the motor factor and start on the setup of the kart. How tense are you driving? Are you a bundle of nerves because youâre fighting the kart? Identify the specific corners you start âgoing to bitsâ on.
- How easy is it to turn in?
- How does the kart handle through the turn?
- How smooth is it to exit the corner?
- How is the kart responding to steering input, neutral, understeer or oversteer?
- If under or over, how are the wheels behaving, do you feel the kart pushing or pulling and is it from the front or rear?
An inventory of your kart is also important:
- What size is your rear axle, and what stiffness (i.e. 40mm medium, 50mm soft, etc)
- How are your wheels spaced in or out
- How is your kartâs weight distributed?
- What kind of tires are you running?
Earlier you commented that you have better experience with rental karts. An interesting effect of most rental karts is (and you may be different in your case) use low-grop high-life tires. If youâre used to going into a corner with speed on a heavy kart with low-grip tires, you will find that you have a good entry speed and the kart will feel easy to steer but the actual capabilities will be inferior to a real race setup. If you have trained yourself to adapt to a low-grip machine, you will wind up desperately fighting a high-grip or too-much-grip machine.
If your kart is setup for excessive grip, I would expect that in the corners it would load the engine and you would notice competitors having more speed through the corners than yourself. A nice sort of reality check is if you had one competitor at your side upon entry, and they maintained position through the corner, by the apex you would find yourself falling behind. If your competition is on the limiter less than you are, I would be looking for side-by-side comparison behavior of acceleration in 2 places: straights and low/medium speed corners. The straight is a pure drag race, you should pull ahead initially with the higher gear ratio (you would top out of revs sooner). The corner is a loading battle. How much grip can be taken away from the motor and put into steering. If your grip is excessive the loss of speed will be pushed to your crank until the clutch disengages. Then you will find that at the exit your competitors are leaving the corner at higher engine RPMs than you.
Sorry for the wall of text, but itâs some things to start with.
Basically, the kart I bought feels off and I am chasing various ideas and seeing where they lead. I agree that setup and some adjustment to cornering are in order. The motor itself is fine, we got around to discussing the possibility that there might be a junior coil or something because of what we comparing gearing-wise. I think we had a miscommunication.
I did go for a test and tune day where some progress was made. Further work to do. I havenât given up at all, itâs only been a couple attempts.
Itâs more like these tires should be grippier on the front end than they are. That may well be me misunderstanding the tires capabilities. My impression is they are slipprier than rental tires. I can put more lateral load in a rental, at turn in phase. So, itâs the opposite. It feels lower grip than even a humble and overweight rental.
From what I have been told, these Hoosiers are slippery. It may just be that. I am driving them into the corner too hard and probably need some time to get a sense of how much to ask and when.
Thank you for the ideas. Next I go back, I am dropping a few teeth, seeing how it feels when geared more lackadaisically. I am also curious to see how front torsion bar might affect things.
Itâs more like these tires should be grippier on the front end than they are. That may well be me misunderstanding the tires capabilities. My impression is they are slipprier than rental tires. I can put more lateral load in a rental, at turn in phase. So, itâs the opposite. It feels lower grip than even a humble and overweight rental.
Iâm familiar with this behavior being called âpushingâ. It feels as though the back is doing more of the steering (being pushed) than your front (Not necessarily understeer). It might be easier to try taking grip out of your rear to move the grip forward. What kind of tire pressures do you run front/rear? For your rear axle, what position is it set to - for ride height? Top, middle, bottom?
Yp, definitely push or understeery. The rear feels quite grippy so yeah, that is a good suggestion. I will ask about pressures and axle position. Thank you!
worcester!? I live nearby. try some of the hills in arlington
Of course, thereâs George St, but thatâs not as steep as Sudbury St downtown, nor Gage St on Green Hill, Wrentham St or Rydal St on the west side, Diamond St down by Holy Cross, nor any of the really steep little side streets between Shrewsbury St and Bell Hill. Bloomingdale Ct doesnât count as itâs used more as a driveway than a street, but Worcester is not short on 20% grades.
boyden is quite steep too, steeper than george I think. I dont think my WF would be able to drive up that. speaking of that, I wonder if there are any karting hill climbs.
a bit off topic, sorry
Well since weâre here.
1 Like
That was enthusiastic!