How many are you buying? One, probably not, a hundred, certainly.
I didnāt know that Fore ran a Swedetech engine, I thought Italian motors usually built their own engines. My first kart that I got in 2020 came with a TM K9c, seems like KZ is here to stay so figured Iāll get back to a KZ.
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Iām curious to know more about this as well.
Yep Fore was on a Swedetech engine. I think IM do their own work, but it probably makes the most sense for them to outsource that to someone dedicated to engines during the weekend.
What makes you say Formalās engine was built by Swedetech? I was under the impression it came direct from OTK.
Maybe Iām wrong? I thought I heard Reine was tuning it on the broadcast.
I believe he thanked Cedric from OTK, as he did when he won on the Vortex in Orlando, but didnāt hear any others mentioned. I could have missed something though!
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Iāll check and correct if needed. Thanks for the heads up.
Iām not sure about this year but when he won in 2019 on a Vortex it was a factory engine, somehow they got one, not sure. I had just assumed it was a factory engine this year as well.
Danny had a factory Vortex. At worst, it was THE select engine out of 100. At best it was the result of knowing what port timing, transfer timing and angles, compression, and squish were best and selecting and machining were needed to get there.
Ok. So as a regular Joe, how do you get there? Dyno test 100 engines? Run 100 tests each with 1 bottom end and one top end from a group of 10, setting compression and squish before each run?
do you think this goes on non-stop all year long, just searching for engines? especially from the big guys like TM and OTK?
Simple but not easy: drive like Danny Formal.
I think the more important (and difficult to really answer) question isā¦ā¦ How much difference does it really make anyway?
I honestly I donāt think it goes on as much is professed. Iām not even convinced itās a good use of manufacturerās or tuners resources in a class where parts can be modified (Within limits).
Sure. You could also drive like Marijn Kremers who finished 2nd, or Matteo Vignano who finished 3rd, or Markus Kajak who had fastest lap.
As for ādoes it matterā - for 75% of drivers in the field who are more than 0.5 s per lap off of pole, no. For the rest - yes. Two feet at the end of the straightaway, 0.3% of power averaged across a 1000-foot 20-mph roll-on to WOT, is the difference between having your front wheel at the rear axle of the kart youāre trying to overtake and having your front wheel at the fuel tank. Until we all have adequate power, enough to be throttling back on the straights to allow the tires to cool, or to not run out of gasoline before the checkers, weāre at the mercy of the engine builders. 0.3% of peak power only changes laptime by 0.1% (3 hundredths in 35 seconds) but in a head-to-head race it matters.
Understand that Iām speaking broadly, not just Supernats or similar events. ādoes it really matterā as it pertains to anyone running a KZ.
In this case weāre probably talking about 20 drivers out of (low) hundreds across the US.
What Iām getting at is that it doesnāt matter to most drivers nearly as much as they might think it does. Even at the highest level 3/100s of a second comes and goes with each lap due to driver.
At the mercy of engine builders is a bit of a stretch. If anything most of us are at the mercy of our driving ability, followed by chassis tuning and lastly engine tuning/power. I think this is true at all levels.
Sure, we all want the most power we can get, but with so many variables at play over the course of a race, having the āgolden gooseā engine is not likely to be the advantage that many might expect.
Like many things in racing, itās more psychological than anything. Alas, as racers we canāt help but to find numbers to rationalize things that are perception based.
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Iām with James on this one. Even at those levels, itās very close. Public post from Jordon who had a front row seat
PSL also had strong motors, goes to show that if you work hard you can compete against the factory engines any day.
(Same engines are for sale on FB, in case anybody wants to grab them and see for themselves)
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Musser was running a engine built or tuned by Franco right? or does PSL do some of the engines themselves and Franco is only there for the top factory guys like Kremmers, Denner, Vigano, etc.?
Iām a midpack club racer most of the time, good driver, good mechanic, ruined by a cheapskate team owner (me) who often says no to new tires and tells me to get out the file or cut shims to ācorrectā old ruined parts to get them through another race. This summer I briefly got a taste of national-level power, courtesy of a fuel sponsor and an open fuel rule. It completely changed the way the kart handled on corner exit and how fast it got down the straights and how easy it was to overtake if I had an exit speed advantage onto a straight.
I like TM KZ engines. Itās way easier to run a good laptime and not incinerate the rear tires than with a 175, and I agree with Jordon that the pretty-good engines are closer to the āAā engines than they used to be, certainly not 5 horsepower different like they were in the K9B days.
Yea Iām not going to win supernats anytime soon so I donāt need or deserve an āAā engine, but its fun to learn about the R&D and what goes into those āAā engines to make them just that much better than an out the box engine. What series did you run that had an open fuel rule? Iāve wanted to play around with fuel just to see what good fuel can do for the engine but havenāt since itād just be for fun and not something Iād ever be able to use.
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I think some of the magic here is due to the Dellorto carb. I did a kart swap for a session at NCMP one day with Justin Kelly, who at the time was on a 175 w/Dellorto on a Maranello chassis. I have plenty of experience with the 175/HB-15A, and the difference to the Dellorto is night and day.
Tying it back to the topic for @anythingwithwheels, carburetion really is everything. I wouldnāt go messing around with different fuels before having a firm grasp on carb setup.
I know Dominic brought over Patrice Mich from France to oversee the carburation and running of the PSL engines, but i ignore if he was in charge of all of them.
You can tell right away when Patrice is in charge of tuning things, as he runs his airboxes with the intake trumpetsā turned the other way around 
He doesnāt like the inconsistency that the carburation goes through as a function of the variance in amount of air rammed into the airbox due to the kartās speed.
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