Time for a test run in the cul-de-sac. Christa’s kart is a 125cc Tag. It is the second-fastest racing class of karts behind shifter karts. It is powered by a liquid-cooled 29 hp engine. It’s a pretty serious racing machine capable of over 80 mph. We were worried that it might not work well for this kind of stuff with the high revving narrow powerband of the engine.
Christa is about to give it a go although it looks like she is ready for a nap. I think she is actually checking her water temperature to make sure the engine is warm enough to prevent cold seizing it. Hope the noise doesn’t piss off the neighbors!
At first, the kart was almost undrivable. Christa has some experience drifting cars and is always trying to drift her race kart so she has a good idea of what to do. However the slightest small bump would cause the kart to bounce out of control and the kart was twitchy and hard to drift, the slightest thing would make the kart do a snap spin.
We reduced the tire pressure to the normal 12 psi which helped with the bouncing out of control. The kart was still really unstable and could not hold much of a drift without doing a snap spin.
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.