T-roy said:
Can someone answer the higher cross , lower cross question. Please. At the moment I have read it both ways. I think loose in you NEED higher cross and push in you NEED lower cross. IS THAT RIGHT????
racing promotor replied: Correct and I don't disagree
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Butt I wan't to throw in some theory basics.
1. You cannot push unless the thing can't turn. The only things to turn you are the front tires working with the track or the back tires with a solid axle and stagger working with the track to turn you.
So if you want to fix a push going in you can only do it by slowing down, getting more turning ability from the fronts, the backs or both or do something to reduce your kart wanting to go straight.
High cross/low cross is about how much weight you have combined your RF and LR tires. To know why you may or may not have fixed a problem when you change cross because cross is a combined number, you need to understand where you actually added weight and how it effected the operation of your RF and LR tires.
I'm going to now make a blunt statement about loose. You can only become loose when your LR tire no longer has enough grip to work with the RR tire holding the backend in. Sure the RR tire with enough grip can by itself hold the backend in but in general dirt oval racing when your LR gives out you become loose. That's because in general the backend is not setup for the RR to hold the back end in on it's own. Why it's not is if your using the RR to exclusively hold in the backend in your not getting any rotational or turning benefit from stagger.
Because of what I wrote above when you change cross to solve either push in or loose in because the only number you have to look at is a combined number it makes a difference weather you raised cross by adding mainly to the RF or the LR.
... just tired of writing and I hope the above did not confuse but made you think about how adding weight to maybe the LR may cause the LR to gain grip or it might move it over it's grip limit. Same with adding your cross mainly to the RF may get you needed grip to make it turn or the additional weight may further push your front end over it's limit of grip. It all just depends.
sorry if this was confusing I think without already having additional knowledge to bring into the picture it is very easily confusing. But it may help if you have thoughts and other ideas in the back of your head about how your kart works and they all of a sudden sort of fit in. Understanding this stuff is a long process.
One last thing I just thought about. Maybe your kid and their weight are just sitting too darn low on the LR. Push in may be then be caused by you just can't get weight away from the LR area of the kart to do something for you, like help the fronts turn. And if it's setting down on the LR area of the kart too much it can also make you prone to easily adjust into a loose because weight at the LR is wanting to throw straight to the right off the LR tire. hope that was ok ???? ...