Transmission
We have discussed about a basic kart and some information in our previous posts. Today, we will see how the transmission of a kart is different from a normal car and how it withstands all the pressure while racing on the tracks.
A kart do not have differential. As there is no differential, one tyre on the rear axle slides while cornering. The cars which we use in our daily lives, have a differential on the rear axle which helps the vehicle to take perfect turns on the road and helps tyre wear as well.
This condition is taken care while designing the kart. The chassis is made so that the inside rear tyre lifts up slightly when the kart turns the corner. This allows the tire to lose some of its grip and slide or lift off the ground completely.
Like in cars, power is transmitted from engine to the rear axle by the means of a chain arrangement. The chain drives the power from engine to the axle sprocket which in turn drives the rear axle and the rear wheels. The power ratio between the engine and the axle sprocket has to be adapted according to track configuration so that the engines gives it’s best performance on the track.
When karting was born, there were direct drives only. But as science grew direct drives proved to be inconvenient which led to the centrifugal clutch for the club level classes. For example, in Rotax Max championship, dry centrifugal clutches are used. Since then it has become the norm as the top international classes have switched to 125 cc clutched engines. The date from which this was effective is January 2007.
Data acquisition
Kart racing is popularizing because of the bottle-neck competition within micro-seconds. The results can’t be finalized using a human being with a video footage of the live race, so various devices are used to measure the precision. Several of these systems have been developed specially for kart racing; to measure the RPM, timing of laps (including sectors) and number of laps, best lap, cooling system temperature and sometime speed or even gear for shifter karts.
These systems allow the driver to monitor from a display fixed on the steering wheel. Some of those systems are able to record (logging) laps data from the sensors, allowing replay of an entire running session and/or direct download to a personal computer equipped with data analysis software. More sophisticated systems allow for more information such as lateral and longitudinal acceleration (or G-force), throttle position, steering wheel position, brake pressure, etc.
Keep checking our blogs for updates.
Toodles.
Chetan Vengurlekar
Keep checking our blogs for updates.
Toodles.
Chetan Vengurlekar