In a discussion on a thread a person made comment that they were newish to the sport and did not understand a point I was trying to make. Me being who I am wrote a "brief" history of engines in karting.
This got me thinking. As brother Shaw pointed out the old saying "those who do not know/learn from the past are destined to repeat it" maybe it would be a good idea to actually publish a history of karting post that might be stickyed or even a history of karting section where those that have been around the sport for a decade or 5 could post information for present and future racers can learn where we came from and mistakes that were made in the past (over all not like oops ran air pressure to high)
To that end here is what I wrote about engines. Please those that know more than me (many of you) feel free to fill in the blanks.
got into karting in the mid 2000's so info from before that was learned second hand. Karting started with 2 stroke power plants and at points in time there were quite a number of those smokey monsters competing for dominance. When small 4 strokes became the direction small engine equipment was going racers slowly gravitated to them and for a bit you could find several different offerings at tracks.
Briggs and Stratton caught wind of the use of their engines and saw a marketing angle and formed Briggs motorsports and karting had factory support for the sport. Deals were made and karting had an era of fairly stable racing. The 2 smokers still shared the track but with the exception of the big HP/open guys if you ran 4 stroke you ran flatty. It was not all roses but about the biggest contravercy in the Briggs era was a few head design changes that made some engines illegal out of spec but it was actually an easy fix all things considered
Enter the EPA and clean air. The flatty got pushed out in favor of ohv engines that were "better for the environment". Briggs phased out the flatty but to show support for karting they introduced the animal.
Unfortunately karters knew for a fact that flatheads would always reign supreme and balked at Briggs trying to force them to abandon their beloved flattys. Now Briggs motorsports had already pulled back a bit on their support because of lack of budget so the racers anger was not totally unfounded.
This was about the same time I entered kart racing. Ohv was going to be the future and Briggs had animal and world formula. There was also a new division called f200 that pitted 4 different makes against each other which was promising. About this time alot of flatty racers that were tired of paying up to $2500 for a flatty with $600 to 1000 refreshes saw that ohv was the future but wanted to cut the Briggs umbilical cord.
Enter the china will save karting era. China was producing Honda based knock offs (usually 1-3 versions earlier than the current Honda) at a fraction of the cost of a new Honda engine. The karting world latched onto these. Some years 3 or 4 different makes of these would show up at the track within a season but their quality control was average to poor and it was sort of a flavor of the month kind of thing.
It seems to have stabilized to an extent but I thank my stars we got out of racing when we did.
Now I am sure that there will be plenty of hate on the ghost but here's something to consider. HF lost alot of money in the early days of China will save karting because racers would go and buy their 6hp engine, pull the governor, race it, blow a hole in the side, throw the governor parts through the hole in the case and take it back to HF and get another one for free under warranty (with coupon you were paying a whole $70 for the dam engine lol)
HF stiffened their return policy and people cried lol. The fact that HF wants to market a kart specific package after karters ripped them off should gain some respect. Further, if HF is willing to throw even 1/4 of the support to the sport Briggs did in their hay day using the ghost as their conduit then we could be entering a new stable version of the sport that has not been seen since about 2005.
This got me thinking. As brother Shaw pointed out the old saying "those who do not know/learn from the past are destined to repeat it" maybe it would be a good idea to actually publish a history of karting post that might be stickyed or even a history of karting section where those that have been around the sport for a decade or 5 could post information for present and future racers can learn where we came from and mistakes that were made in the past (over all not like oops ran air pressure to high)
To that end here is what I wrote about engines. Please those that know more than me (many of you) feel free to fill in the blanks.
got into karting in the mid 2000's so info from before that was learned second hand. Karting started with 2 stroke power plants and at points in time there were quite a number of those smokey monsters competing for dominance. When small 4 strokes became the direction small engine equipment was going racers slowly gravitated to them and for a bit you could find several different offerings at tracks.
Briggs and Stratton caught wind of the use of their engines and saw a marketing angle and formed Briggs motorsports and karting had factory support for the sport. Deals were made and karting had an era of fairly stable racing. The 2 smokers still shared the track but with the exception of the big HP/open guys if you ran 4 stroke you ran flatty. It was not all roses but about the biggest contravercy in the Briggs era was a few head design changes that made some engines illegal out of spec but it was actually an easy fix all things considered
Enter the EPA and clean air. The flatty got pushed out in favor of ohv engines that were "better for the environment". Briggs phased out the flatty but to show support for karting they introduced the animal.
Unfortunately karters knew for a fact that flatheads would always reign supreme and balked at Briggs trying to force them to abandon their beloved flattys. Now Briggs motorsports had already pulled back a bit on their support because of lack of budget so the racers anger was not totally unfounded.
This was about the same time I entered kart racing. Ohv was going to be the future and Briggs had animal and world formula. There was also a new division called f200 that pitted 4 different makes against each other which was promising. About this time alot of flatty racers that were tired of paying up to $2500 for a flatty with $600 to 1000 refreshes saw that ohv was the future but wanted to cut the Briggs umbilical cord.
Enter the china will save karting era. China was producing Honda based knock offs (usually 1-3 versions earlier than the current Honda) at a fraction of the cost of a new Honda engine. The karting world latched onto these. Some years 3 or 4 different makes of these would show up at the track within a season but their quality control was average to poor and it was sort of a flavor of the month kind of thing.
It seems to have stabilized to an extent but I thank my stars we got out of racing when we did.
Now I am sure that there will be plenty of hate on the ghost but here's something to consider. HF lost alot of money in the early days of China will save karting because racers would go and buy their 6hp engine, pull the governor, race it, blow a hole in the side, throw the governor parts through the hole in the case and take it back to HF and get another one for free under warranty (with coupon you were paying a whole $70 for the dam engine lol)
HF stiffened their return policy and people cried lol. The fact that HF wants to market a kart specific package after karters ripped them off should gain some respect. Further, if HF is willing to throw even 1/4 of the support to the sport Briggs did in their hay day using the ghost as their conduit then we could be entering a new stable version of the sport that has not been seen since about 2005.