We had tried just to take all the air out without removing the valve stems but the small amount of pressure retained in the tire makes it really hard to get the sleeves over the tire so taking out the valve stems is an important step!
Next, reinflate the tires to hold the sleeves in place. We made the mistake of inflating the tires to 30 psi up from their normal 12 psi running pressure. We were worried that the sleeves would fly off so we overinflated the tires by a lot to help hold them on. What happened is that the kart became so bouncy that the slightest bump would throw the kart out of control. We reduced the pressure to 12 psi and things became a lot better and the sleeves still stayed in place.
Here are the sleeves in place, ready to run. Don’t worry they are not going to fly off!
9 comments
do you think putting the sleeves on the front would introduce enough slip to make it easier to manage? also, dad of the year?
No, it would be really hard to control and you would still have the basic problem of not enough steering angle and too much Ackerman angle and too much front drag.
When you say “a lot of ackerman angle”, what does that mean? More inside wheel scrub or less? I am confused… Cool article!
It means the inside wheel turns more than the outside.
Haha, nice article! Looks like a fun experiment even if it didn’t work out.
This is definitely something I’ve wanted to try one I get a kart.
Thanks for this writeup, I found it to be quite helpful. I am an amateur rally racer and I’m building an electric kart to get accessible seat time between rallies. I am very keen to turn it into a drift kart.
What you wrote at the end matched up well with my own thoughts on how I might be able to turn this into well tuned a drifting machine. I will be playing around with the steering geometry – hoping that plus the insane torque from the electric motor is able to get the job done.
Would you be willing to connect briefly on this? You seem incredibly knowledgeable on the subject, I think it would help tons. I’m more than happy to share my results with you! I don’t see a way to send you a message here. Am I missing something or is that the case? If so I will give you a burner email in here. Thanks!
a few years back my son and 10 year old son and i used to play with an old margay sprint kar (mine) and an old Rup racing kart (his). both were terrible on at street drifting, but were AMAZING on grass and dirt with Harbor freight Pred motors. The instant torque and broader power band made throttle modulation sublime and even with drift slicks the Rup was a decent drifter if the speeds were low.
Funny experience: I noticed that the jacking and Ackerman was great for grass and dirt drifting on kart slicks thanks to the lower surface friction. It allowed for CRAZY angle at high speeds and awesome feints.
That’s said I have a big diameter rear axle. I flipped the rear wheels and mounted them backwards to narrow the rear track. That alone made the Kart less likely to spin out, even on pavement.
Yeah the high strung two stroke is way less than ideal for this for sure.