Locked Down, what causes this condition?

PrimeTime

PrimeTime

Member
Assuming your on the correct tires and prep what would cause a kart to be locked down?

i.e. Too much left, not air pressure, cross???

Interested in racer's opinions from a setup standpoint.


Thanks
 
Been my experience you get locked down because of tires. I think maybe air pressure could cause your tires to lock you down to much if that's the case you are on wrong tires. Just MHO. Good luck.
 
PrimeTime said:
Assuming your on the correct tires and prep what would cause a kart to be locked down?

i.e. Too much left, not air pressure, cross???

Interested in racer's opinions from a setup standpoint.


Thanks
Click to expand...

All the grip in the world will not hurt you so long as you are able to roll your tires in the direction you want to go.

More grip equals more speed by being able to carry more momentum and put hp to the track. The ONLY resistance grip offers to rolling a tire straight is when it is compressed rolling over the track and when released from the track. If you are rolling a tire onto the track in the direction you want to go and then releasing it from the track still rolling in the direction you want to go, sure it's offering resistance but the rolling resistance for all practical purposes is meaningless.

Locked down ONLY occurs when you have enough grip to go in the direction you want to go AND two or more tires are fighting with each other for control of direction. You could be fighting with the tires through the steering wheel and you feel the fight. Two or more tires can also be fighting each other for control, with the fight occurring without a winner for control. In that case all you notice is it just seems slow and locked down because it's easy to drive.

Search on here for how to use your staggered solid axle in the most efficient way. If you can use your solid axle in the most efficient way by loading and unloading each rear tire as necessary, your rear tires combined will roll in the direction you want to go. All you need out of your front tires is to hold the front end up, put a little effort into things starting turn in, carrying the front end over to the left and > to help in loading weight onto and off of the rear tires so they will roll in the direction you want to go.

If you can do what I just explained all that is left to do is to match up how you carry the load on the tires, to track conditions. You match up the load carried front to rear, left to right and up and down to match up with track and racing conditions. Track and racing conditions are track speed, banking, the shape of the turns, available grip and available hp.

But no matter what the track conditions, locked down only occurs and is the result of two or more tires fighting for control of direction. Figure out which tires don't want to roll in the direction you want to go, make them roll where you want to go and you will not be locked down. It's that simple. ... :)

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Here's a quick example of locked down. Lets say you have too much stagger and everyone knows stagger is like how a paper cup rolls. More stagger and it wants to roll more to the left. But even though it wants to roll to the left because of a lot of stagger and the paper cup thing, you have a lot of grip and can make it go where you want to.

Your not loose because the back end in no way is going to slide because you have plenty of grip. You can just put effort into the steering wheel and make it go where you want to go.

That effort and the resulting fighting of the fronts and back for control of direction,eats up hp. And your locked down. You have a whole ton of control, but no rolling speed because the fronts are fighting with the rears. It doesn't have to be all the tires fighting with each other, it could be just the RR having a lot of grip and just fighting your turning because it wants to roll straight. It might even be having the front end all messed up and the two front tires wanting to go in different directions, maybe a ton of toe out, and grip eats hp.

No matter what tire or tires it is, your locked down because you have grip and you have a tire or tires trying to make you go in some direction, you do not want to go. And this is all just IMHO and ain't necessarily right anyway. ... :)
 
The way I see Locked Down, If your locked down your not on the correct tire or To much prep, locked down to me is to soft or over prepped you can add air to this combination to mask it some but that's all it will do, locked down is a tire and prep issue, to much or to little cross, left,stagger, cambers there all BALANCE issues.
 
PrimeTime said:
Assuming your on the correct tires and prep what would cause a kart to be locked down?

i.e. Too much left, not air pressure, cross???

Interested in racer's opinions from a setup standpoint.


Thanks
Click to expand...

You took out all the variables, that leaves you with set up.
Air pressure is tires, so if the tires are correct, the air is correct as i look at it.
Too much left wont lock you down, not enough will.
Locked down is a term that is related to mostly the RR, and rarely the LR. Cross helps free up a kart, depending on the kart and the age of it will determine whether you need more or less. Adding left will also help free up a kart, but you can get too much also and hurt yourself. Nose percentage IMO dont fit in here, too little nose and the kart will push rather than be locked down.
Caster at stock settings wont lock you down, usually. Camber could create this also, but its usually not a camber issue.
 
Given what OP asked I'd look at the rightside tires being overloaded (not enough leftside or too high a VCG) or chassis problems such as body/seat mounting, seat position or bumper/nerf bar mounting.

Mike McCarty
Chassis Manual (Only $17.95)
www.kartcalc.com
 
I think I figured out the issue, we switched classes at the track and added 20lbs to make weight. I rescaled today and our cross was within 1% of our left side weight.

I think the low cross put too much bite in the chassis.

Thanks for the replies, food for thought.

.
 
Most of the time when I hear someone talking about "locked down" they don't have enough bite. When it's not a bit issue then it's most often an assembly or setup issue. When it does turn out to be setup related they're typically way far off the standard baseline numbers.

Todd
www.dynamicsofspeed.com
 
PrimeTime said:
I think I figured out the issue, we switched classes at the track and added 20lbs to make weight. I rescaled today and our cross was within 1% of our left side weight.

I think the low cross put too much bite in the chassis.

Thanks for the replies, food for thought.

.
Click to expand...

I forget for sure but what chassis you on ? a newer Slack correct if so yes cross to close to left most likely has something to do with it, however since your racing in NY I gotta wonder what Todd points out, the fact that your lacking bite.
 
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