We had tear offs. Color television and microwaves too.
Regarding what is possible for asphalt sprint racing.. I’d say a couple 500cc two stroke cylinders on a custom bottom end, cvt trans of some sort, all wheel drive and as much aero as possible. Developing something like that would be fun and it would be crazy fast.
Maybe do a single 500cc and an electric motor that provided power to the wheels and to a fan that sucked the kart down to the track like that Mcmurty Speirling or whatever its called.
That sounds really smart Bryan and very fast. Rob and you have a solid idea with AWD and downforce. More or less what I was trying to get at with this thread. It doesn’t seem like it would take a rocket surgeon to create…just money and some know how. Yet I haven’t run across anything of the sort in 15 years.
Could probably be done for pretty cheap and break some track records like Streets of Willow where there aren’t as many long straight aways.
Big willow has a very high spot on the leaderboard in a shifter kart. Average lap speed of 115MPH. This is way faster than even the fastest multi-million dollar production cars.
I just found that kart time. Oddly enough it evaded me every time I looked at that lap chart haha. 1:18.19 is flyyyyyying when you consider these karts don’t make significant downforce from the floor (right? Aren’t the wings more trim pieces than anything?).
Honestly after looking at some of your guys replies and what has been done before, I think something around 1:12 or 1:10 should be obtainable if you went hog wild. Very insightful thread.
I have shared that in another thread, I am pretty excited about it.
If I had more free time, I would like to build a Kart with an Axial Flux motor and such geared CVT and let it rip in an unlimited class.
I wish Emrax (or any other) would release a 30kW axial flux. Their smallest is 7Kg for 60kW, which is actually great, just a bit too heavy for karting use. Foot print is actually ok.
There was a guy in northern ireland who built a twin division 1 superkart many years ago, I think it had two rotax 256 engines. Now I bet that shifted.
My local mechanic put a 600 bike engine in the back of his kart, looked out of proportion, didnt corner, just drifted,went like nothing else in a straight line
I often think of building a long circuit bike engined kart with either a V4 on the side or inline behind. Maybe in a couple of years
More great replies. Thanks for the video as well Alan, not sure how to reply to you guys individually.
A twin Rotax 256 sounds terrifying. The 600cc bike engine karts have been around for a while but all they do is drift as you said. What makes me curious would to scale up a kart to fit a bike engine if that makes sense.
Keep the proportions of a kart to 125cc single cyl but do it for a 600cc bike engine.
The references to sportbike powered karts reminded me of a fantastic thread that was posted here a few years ago. It gave a great summary, with photos, of several of the ultra-fast Unlimited class Enduro and Road Race karts that appeared at the annual WKA Daytona Kartweek event, held at the end of 2018.
Along with several single and dual-engined laydown enduro karts, there also featured a kart powered by a Suzuki sportbike motor. Not one of those “Youtube Special” bike-powered contraptions that are only run a few hundred yards on some back road or parking lot. But an actual Superkart, or at least meant to resemble a Superkart, intended to be raced on the high banks of Daytona, or any other road course in America.
That Kartweek at Daytona may have been the last time it ran however. Apparently, there were some major handling issues due to the size of the motor that they were simply unable to overcome. I don’t know if anyone else had attempted to run it after that.
I did manage to find the thread. Well worth looking at to see what some of the Road Racers are capable of:
Thanks. I am checking that thread out now. There was something called a Formula Pacifica that came to mind a few years back. Not a traditional kart, but iirc that used a 600cc Yamaha R6 engine. Very fast.
A friend and fellow Superkarter of mine is now producing these in Australia under licence from Elkmann (Performer). Hopefully I’ll get a drive in the near future. In case you’re wondering, they’re fast.
And the Hyper-racers below are also being produced in Australia (by another former superkarter), and really beginning to get a following. I believe they are now being exported to the US and also getting support. Alan, certainly by some sectors of the motorsports community/market, spec racing is sought and supported (there is very much a place for it). And you can still get innovation.
