My son raced a whole heat race with the steering locked. The kart was actually competitive too. Lol. We knew we had a good kart for the feature beings he couldn't steer it and it was still fast.
Someone talk Caster with me!
- Thread starter 1fasttiller
- Start date
1fasttiller
Member
You mean locked as in the pin for the toe lock? He raced like that?
paulkish
old fart
Totally wrong, off base, and will screw with your mind taking you down a path to doom if you think and deal with stagger the way.
You get your kart working right for the stagger your using and the track.
Infinitely different amounts of staggers will work and to think it has to be "right" is "wrong".
Stagger is right for the rest of your setup which controls how it works.
Putting stagger first is like putting the horse before the cart.
Whatever stagger you have is used at DIFFERENT places around a turn and around the track.
You set up to use stagger you don't use stagger to setup.
There are times and actually most of the time where you have to use whatever stagger you have.
It's the kart and your tires you adjust to make stagger work not the other way around.
Stagger works because you can unload and load tires.
Stagger does NOTHING at all to unload and load tires or make them work, it allows them to work.
The >>>>>ONLY<<<< two things stagger does is altering ride height and set a difference in surface speed between the left and right rear tires.
Any time you think and use stagger to do anything else is wrong.
If you change stagger and it changes anything about how your kart works you need to think about how either changing ride height caused it to happen or how changing the difference in tire surface speed between the two rear tires caused it to happen.
Change the difference in surface speed between your two rear tires and you will cause either of your two rear tires or both rear tires, to slip more or grip more depending on your ability to apply weight to each at the right time for your racing needs.
Prepping to alter the grip of a rear tire does the exact same thing as changing stagger without changing ride height.
Both are about altering the ability of each rear tire to grip in relationship to each other and both ways are totally dependent on your ability to apply and remove weight from each rear tire.
Al if your close on stagger there is no need to change it so long as you can fine-tune by chemically or mechanically alter how each rear tire grips.
Al if your spreadsheet gets racers "close" on stagger per your suggested input then it has value. (DID I JUST SAY THAT?) ...
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My daughter did the same thing last year on 1/8 mile dirt oval. Went out last in a practice session, passed all other karts in 5 laps, came in and said it turned really hard!! I told her it looked really good and what did she mean. Her reply was I don’t know it just turns hard. I was thinking it was really stuck to the track till I grabbed the wheel and it wouldn’t turn. Drove 5 laps with toe lock pin in. Still can’t figure out how she didn’t break the pin!!
alvin l nunley
Site Supporter
I hope you measured the stagger very carefully after that practice session. It, apparently, was set perfect for that track.
Yes, the toe lock was pinned. The jamnut on the steering post loosened up from him "trying" to steer....or maybe just the force. There was slight movement in the wheel from the jam nut loosening. When I say slight...i basically mean none. Lol
We were pretty close!
Ran 4 features there. Won two and second in the others.Fathead283
New member
What was your numbers side to side? How much more stagger? On dirt? What’s your total weight? Thanks
410 lbs. front stagger I ended up a quarter to half inch more in the front. Was recommended to start 3/4 to 1 inch more. If it pushes decrease stagger until push goes away. Yes dirt. I will have to look at the numbers but if I recall correctly I left them the same as with normal caster.