A little outside the norm for this forum (racing karts)
Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2020 9:58 am
Back in the early 2000's I raced shifterkarts at a professional level in the SKUSA ProMoto Tour. Just ran across these pictures from the 2002 Austin GP. My dad (now deceased) and I did all the engine development for our package in house. The engines started life as 1999 Honda CR125 motocross engines. We did extensive port reworking, custom expansion chambers, custom combustion chambers, and programmable ignition work to raise and widen the entire power curve significantly. In stock form these engines are around 32 rwhp and 16 ft*lbs of torque. The stock power band is 7000-12000 RPM. Our package made usable power from 7000-13500 RPM and made 44 rwhp at 12000 RPM. Top speed on these sprint tracks was around 100mph, with cornering capabilities at 3+ g's.
This class I was racing in was ultra competitive. The entire field of 25+ karts was within 0.4 seconds on a 45 second lap. My best finish was 5th at the Barrie GP in Canada. We were up against some large teams with much more resources, so I was very satisfied to always be in the top half of the pack.
This class I was racing in was ultra competitive. The entire field of 25+ karts was within 0.4 seconds on a 45 second lap. My best finish was 5th at the Barrie GP in Canada. We were up against some large teams with much more resources, so I was very satisfied to always be in the top half of the pack.