Track Tac

Quarter midgets versus LTO

flattop1 said:
I am far out of touch with quarter midgets .
I may remember them running continental engines or something odd .
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Yes they did but now they are under usac authority and usac makes them use a honda 120 or 160 and they have an animal class...I used to race when the continental were in
 
Years ago I bought a guy out and part of it mystified me for a long time. Finally found out it was a really old 1/4 midget with a Deco engine. I did a little research on the motor and it was a small engine General Motors made for the war effort in the 40's. It still ran, I wish I had kept it.
 
alvin l nunley said:
Pete, your first picture (drawing) is a front view and shows the right front tire offset 2 inches (approximate) the 2nd picture (photograph) shows a rearview, actual offset about the same. Nothing like an LTO kart.
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The second photo is an LTO kart.

In your first message of this thread, you said: "....why is there so much difference in offset?". In both cases, it appears that the chassis designers are pretty much aiming towards "all they can get", when it comes to offset. Maybe I'm not understanding the difference you speak of in your first message?

PM
 
Pete_Muller said:
The second photo is an LTO kart.

In your first message of this thread, you said: "....why is there so much difference in offset?". In both cases, it appears that the chassis designers are pretty much aiming towards "all they can get", when it comes to offset. Maybe I'm not understanding the difference you speak of in your first message?

PM
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That was stupid of me, the only excuse I have is my eyes are getting so bad it's getting hard to make out real good detail. In any case, upon further review, I wonder, are those Rear wheels As close to the frame as some people are suuggesting they Should be?I need to look for better pictures. There's one website that has a quarter midgets in pictures that step the car in a circle, showing different views, but they haven't fixed so I can do a print screen.
 
alvin l nunley said:
That was stupid of me, the only excuse I have is my eyes are getting so bad it's getting hard to make out real good detail. In any case, upon further review, I wonder, are those Rear wheels As close to the frame as some people are suuggesting they Should be?I need to look for better pictures. There's one website that has a quarter midgets in pictures that step the car in a circle, showing different views, but they haven't fixed so I can do a print screen.
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Rr rim as close as possible to the frame rail.
Lr rim on average 1 in from frame rail, depending on the width of the chassis.
An advertisement is just that, they slapped it together for a photo shoot
 
XXX#40 said:
Rr rim as close as possible to the frame rail.
Lr rim on average 1 in from frame rail, depending on the width of the chassis.
An advertisement is just that, they slapped it together for a photo shoot
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Those are not the instructions I have been reading. Never saw the phrase "depending on the with of the chassis". I always thinking about that, "are all chassis the same width" I've been wondering?
 
alvin l nunley said:
Those are not the instructions I have been reading. Never saw the phrase "depending on the with of the chassis". I always thinking about that, "are all chassis the same width" I've been wondering?
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We use a measurement across the contact patch, called rear track width, measurement off the frame rail are just a starting place...a baseline, I really don't care how far off the frame rail the lr rim ends up being, but yes not all rear frame rails measures the same width.
 
XXX#40 said:
We use a measurement across the contact patch, called rear track width, measurement off the frame rail are just a starting place...a baseline, I really don't care how far off the frame rail the lr rim ends up being, but yes not all rear frame rails measures the same width.
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And now for getting down to the point of my original post. Your kart has the right rear very close to the frame rail, a quarter midgets has the left rear very close to the frame rail. There weight center is shifted to the left, the kart, as you described it, as the weight center shifted to the right.

Before you find fault with my description, find a picture of a quarter midgets, viewed from the rear, and a picture of a kart, like yours, viewed from the rear. It seems pretty clear to be that they're different. "Why the difference?" is what I'm asking.
 
Final effort to make my point. This is a quarter midgets, front and rear view. Definitely offset to the left.
 

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alvin l nunley said:
And now for getting down to the point of my original post. Your kart has the right rear very close to the frame rail, a quarter midgets has the left rear very close to the frame rail. There weight center is shifted to the left, the kart, as you described it, as the weight center shifted to the right.
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Al,

There is a very good reason the right rear is close to the chassis. Take a look at the photo below of an LTO chassis.

Screen Shot 2021-06-13 at 8.02.22 PM.jpg
 
alvin l nunley said:
That was stupid of me, the only excuse I have is my eyes are getting so bad it's getting hard to make out real good detail. In any case, upon further review, I wonder, are those Rear wheels As close to the frame as some people are suuggesting they Should be?I need to look for better pictures. There's one website that has a quarter midgets in pictures that step the car in a circle, showing different views, but they haven't fixed so I can do a print screen.
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This isnt that complicated....

Quarter Midgets offset the driver via tire spacing/axle length

Karts offset the driver via frame rail design
 
josheezpapa said:
Back to the original question, and I'm not an expert. Heck, im barely even a spurt...
But I think they are different from one another based on application...
As was stated. Qtr's commonly race on tiny tiny tracks.
With an LTO, the chassis, and setup, has to be geared towards corner speed, straight line speed, and entry/exit/rotate..
Witha qtr, its all corner speed, no concession needs to be made to make it shoot down a straightaway, just all corners and momentum.. gotta offset al lot, I'd think, to keep wheels on the ground ... I'd bet there's al fair amount of axle lead in a successful qtr chassis, im surprised the stagger isn't more pronounced
Im sure the differences don't end at amount of offset, ill bet wheelbase, track width, as I mentioned, axle lead all all in the equation ...
And shocks... oh my, shocks, we aren't a real serious team and I have over 20 dif torsion bars, and a dozen shocks.. a qtr midget guy would likely have more

Thats all just my guess, I know nothing about qtr midgets
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I'm barely even a spurt :D I love it.
 
"There's one website that has a quarter midgets in pictures that step the car in a circle, showing different views, but they haven't fixed so I can do a print screen."

Al, I have "printkey" on my pc which I got 20+ years ago.
My version is from the 90"s and works great with my current Windows operating system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PrintKey_2000

It reads like it's free.
My old one works great and makes it easy to copy anything from your screen.
If your afraid of the current free download I can send you a copy of my 20+ year old one from when I worked at IBM.
Everyone had it then and used it until IBM told us we could not use it anymore because they didn't want to pay for it's use.
Most everyone just kept it and used it anyway because it worked and why use anything different.
 
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