I currently drive a Rotax Max (pre Evo), and I was planning on switching engines next year. Most of the Rotax drivers at my track drive a Rotax Evo, and while I can switch to it, I’d rather spend the money on something faster. While I would love to make the jump to a KZ engine, unfortunately there a little to no drivers with a shifter kart, so it is not an ideal option at the moment.
The other two main classes that are racing at my track (with a similar amount of drivers) are the X30 and the Vortex DVS. While the X30 is appealing due to its reliability and ease of use (starter), it misses out on performance compared to the DVS, and looks like it is much closer to Rotax in that regard. On the other hand, I can’t find a lot of information about the DVS, and my opinion is solely based on the ones I have seen running at my track. Is it essentially the same engine as the Vortex DDS, and as such other OK engines in terms of performance/reliability? And will I be able to use parts from the DDS engine?
If any one has any opinions on the two engines, or has driven either and can compare the two with the Rotax, I would really appreciate the feedback. Any suggestions for which class I should go for would be more than welcome.
I don’t have much technical experience on the DVS, but I did get to drive one once. As I understand it, it’s pretty similar to the OK engines. Compared to the X30/Rotax, it’s much faster and more demanding to drive. Also a lot of fun. When I drove it, the kart had no weight on, so I was probably at 300 pounds overall and I was spinning tires everywhere. It was insanely fun.
That being said, the X30 is going to be similar in performance to the Rotax but the ownership experience is going to be better. I haven’t driven Rotax since before the Evo switch, but I would never drive one again after running X30 for the past 6 years. The engine is smooth, reliable, no voo-doo with jetting/needles/tubes/powervalves, and it’s actually fun to drive.
It depends on what your aspirations are. If you just want to race locally and have fun, the DVS might be a fun time. However, depending on your location, the X30 might offer more chances to race in different locations.
Thanks for the informative reply! It’s great to hear that the X30 avoids most of the issues with the Rotax. Would you say that the X30 is quite a jump from the Rotax Max is terms of how fun it is to drive? The X30 would be much easier to own and while there aren’t any official races locally, odds are that it would be easier to race abroad. My issue is that I am starting to find my Rotax not as fun to drive now that I have more experience with karting, so I’m hoping that my next engine will be better in that aspect.
Rotax and x30 in my neck of the woods run together in the same races. (and drive me crazy).
The rotaxes pull harder coming out of corners but top out sooner. So it’s different but more or less equal and makes for some good racing.
It’s sort of like you want an Americano or a Macciatto?
Rotaxes have a longer time between rebuilds (25hrs I think versus around 10-15 for x30). But I think the pre-evo engines might be a bit more fiddly than x30. More little adjustments needed to make them happy?
Here’s a little video of my son nick (x30) racing against a boy called Ryan (rotax).
You can see what I mean about the difference in how power is delivered. Nick catches him at the end of the fast bits but Ryan zoomed ahead coming out of corners.
Both boys are “regular” kids with limited experience so this isn’t gonna be TJ or Nordberg level racing, but it does illustrate rotax vs x30 pretty well.