Kart Aerodynamics Warzone! Kart Republic Drops Game-Changing Floor Tech Bomb at World Championship
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- Опубликовано: 5 фев 2025
- Kart Republic have pulls the covers of some clever aero work and workarounds on the floor of the KZ for this weekend FIA Karting World Championship event
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I had a zip GP that had a one piece full floor pan with a molded in ventury . One at a super speedway it pulled itself down and ground a couple of holes in it! Talk about down force!
I have always wanted to run a tube from the nose cone to behind the seat just to releave the pressure difference to reduce drag but that is a pretty cool innovation as well
This just shows how low tech are actually kart manufacturers. You can have massive gains through flexing CFRP/Kevlar mixtures, the whole chassis flex can be controlled by the floor/seat, thru aere load etc.
I remember in the 90s Tyrrell had Yamaha engines with very low power(when they weren't exploding), so they decided to make their car aero optimized for corners at 80 kph - that's A LOT of karting corners. They won all their points on these tracks!
Now in 2024 kart manufacturers are finally realizing that aero load plays a role. Good for them, what a bunch of geniuses! I hope there are more rich parents ready to give a million for little Jonny to race with these geniuses, there is soooo much to learn from them.
Anyways, finding out about aero gains will only make karting significantly more expensive, especially at fast long tracks. It won't make much difference if CIK bans CFRPs... the genie is out of the bottle.
Karts power/weight ratio is fantastic, but top speed is low. Doesn't take much to figure it's drag limited.
this is why motorsports in general sucks. Is it better for a club to have 50 drivers who race because they can afford it or for a club to have 10 drivers because the sport is expensive? There should be a cheap class and within reason, peeps will come. No wonder online "racing" is popular.
@@johncrow5552LO206 exists in the USA
@johncrow5552 that's the briggs l206 class in karting
@@johncrow5552 True karting should be the cheapest option and things like this just make it even more expensive. They should use 4-stroke engines in karting to make it much more affordable
@@NoGripGarage this is not a class in many places, like where I live. Only 2 strokes. But agreed. 4 stroke sounds good.
Years ago I ran a home made plastic floor tray, with Rowrah being our home track with lots of bark, curbs and rain. Initially we ran it to the rail behind the seat and it seemed to work well in testing. Asked for clarification with scrutineers before racing and they couldn't decide what to make of it. After a few months of scratching their head they found or added the rule about it finishing at the central rail, so cut it back and ran with it. This was before the days of skid plates so sitting it under the chassis gearbox style was great for protecting the chassis.
I'm all for it, I got my 9 year old son his first kart earlier this year and it just happens to be a kart Republic.
I love mechanical and aerodynamical engineering and I find it frustrating what I'm not allowed to do with my son's kart.
I fully understand that the rules are there to help keep level playing field and to try and keep cheating out of the sport.
But a nearly full floor tray covering all the chassis tubing would help protect it from scrubbing and there for give it a better life span which I'm sure most people would appreciate to save them having to replace the chassis every so often.
Anything that improves safety, handling, and longevity of the Kart should always be welcome.
Full length floor pans have been run for years on long track karts in the U.S. (excluding a few classes). Done mostly for the reduced drag, some do have an upturn at the back to act as a diffuser. Hard to tune them for the exact amount of downforce needed and "planting" the rear axle too much can actually slow a kart down in long sweeping corners. But for me the biggest drawback is all the debris that collects there - what a mess!
Is it faster ?
What happened to lap times in testing ?
I was experimenting with this in the late 80's here in the US ... and I had professional drivers come up to me at an Sprint car event in Indy and ask me WHERE I got the idea---b'cuz it was working. They could see the vortex I'd generated in the dust behind me ..... aero is scalable
Really interesting - looking forward to seeing the outcome! Although I can't imagine a measurable benefit.
Yeh, lets add aero which increases costs. How could that possibly end badly? I'm sure most casual racers could think of nothing better than spending even more money on a hobby!
yes and no. The seat solution would cost nothing. So anyone, even the poorest racer, could have found that and found an advantage that their wealthier rivals couldn't. So there's a balance. Sometimes innovation allowance means 'poorer' people can come out on top.
now, if we're talking the homologated bodywork that a I agree is absolute nonsense.
but also, I suspect the regs will close on this anyway by next year.
I have been waiting for some aero on a kart to make it more stable at high speed.
I'm glad that SKUSA strictly forbids this. Otherwise I'd have to pay Igor Souza or Kurby Hemphill for the CFD work and start building molds and brackets.
Thats a verygood way of making sure that karting will get so exspensive that onlyvery richpeople Can participate. FIA have lost the plot of this is allowed
the seat could be emulated for next to nothing. The floor will have regulations clarified very quickly. This is top level though, enjoy it for now.
The homologated Nassau Panels though, that's 100% a sillyness.
We are so far removed from the 90’s with ICA and FA, it kinda breaks my heart. This idea makes sense for DIv1 Long track but makes not much sense for short track. I’m sure OTK version of the Floor tray will be astronomical. Oh and Nassau panels, lol, These are getting completely out of hand too.
@@SRKarting The floor will get cracked down on. It probably isn't legal in UK, so I wouldn't worry about that. This is world champs though and is a great place for this kind of thing. Good to ignite discussion.
The homologated bodywork though, that's a different matter due to it mandatory status. I will get on that soon with a video.
@@AlanDoveKarting if everyone has it, then whats the point of having it? it will increase costs and for what? so everyone is 0.1 secs quicker a lap?
@@johncrow5552 it's world championship, it's cool. It get people talking.
The fact it was possible, and I should have acted upon this myself, meant that if it is worth a tenth, that tenth was possible to achieve for almost no cost for someone. So it's cheap pace, for anyone brave enough to act upon it.
Granted after that point, it then dissipates. But it's about he philosophy of openness within the regs. Innovative ideas can be very cheap.
karting has never had stricter rules than it has had now, and I don't see costs going down.
I don't think this will make much of a difference. Averaged speed of airflow and surface area of the floor are too small.
1:59 the molded Seat would be a great design and idea but It would stiffen the setup and It would be a big problem
good point. Something to consider
it's cool, but if everyone would have to get one to be competitive, we might as well ban them all instead of letting it become one more thing you need to be on par with everyone else
Kinda hurts when you have ideas of improving aerodynamic efficiency of a go-kart, try to push them through to at least be noted, and then recieve answers "that won't work" and "why do you bother, just use slipstream and hide behind nose cone on straights" and then a whole year later KR releases THIS. Ouch. Well done, KR, now I'm depressed. Though my idea was a bit different -- bolt the seat to a very long aluminium plate which would connect to a rear bumper specifically shaped like a diffuser, along with adding plates and ducts which would get rid of dirty air from the tires.
I have a hard time believing that would provide any gains on a sprint kart track, other than to pad the mfr wallets. On a road course though, with long fast stretches, I could see it as a potential advantage.
As a fan/spectator I'm all in for innovation and making karting slightly more complex.
As a driver I'm getting worried that things get too complicated, money wise ahahah.
Rumour has it OTK is going to release, if not already have, a sort of tube that sits beside the seat and goes directly to the brakes to improve cooling, thus admitting their weaknesses. Do you have any info about this matter?
Could probably fit this into the video when you approach the nassau panels.
Great video Alan, I was to be going to Portimão (to watch) but unfortunately couldn't.
Cheers.
that tube already exist though. I don't remember when but I'm sure it was released before pandemic happened. At least it always comes with a new chassis here in South America
The tube that you mention already exists, and even before it, folks in my country were already mounting ducts specifically for the purpose of cooling the brakes. More than that, NACA nose cones have become popular in recent years, which optimise the airflow that comes towards the pilot's head, as much as I understand it. However, I ask myself, why this OTK tube is so friggin' expensive (it's literally a plastic tube), and why those nose cones cost twice as much as OTK M5.
@@DemolitionMotorsports which are these NACA nose cones, tried to search it but havent found any
@@pachakutimundi6813 KG 508
@@pachakutimundi6813 KG 508, for example
Can we get a new FIA rule that floor trays have to be made from one piece of magnetic steel and have at least 20 25 mm holes in them? I'd rather buy a dimple die set than develop another kart aero package.
Very nice video but the music makrd ot hard sometimes to hear your voice
@FERGX12 Sorry, all made hastily. Will change in future
Were they allowed to run it?
@MX304 I don't know. They didnt run it when it was wet thats all i know
A pointless engineering exercise that does nothing for the racing and only adds expense to an already too expensive sport. Ban it and move on.
@dynomiterecords4348 added interest and intrigue ... both things massively lacking in the elite competition
@@AlanDoveKarting spoken like an engineer no doubt
@@dynomiterecords4348 Have you not seen my engineering attempts? The reality is championships with technical intrigue and development dwarf every other form of motorsport in terms of viewership. While karting is primarily a competitors based activity, I think the only Group 1 class, KZ, should be a place where professional drivers can exist. This only comes from eyeballs watching. What Kart Republic did here, even unknowingly, was make the event inherently more interesting with an extra layer of jeopardy.
@@AlanDoveKarting Sorry but karting needs an aerodynamic component like it needs a hole in the head. It adds pointless complexity and expense to keep engineers in jobs.
@@dynomiterecords4348 I was very specific. I said Group 1. One class that affects 30 drivers in the world. It's nice to have something where a exploit of the regulations has been found and something to write about and make videos on. Here and elsewhere it has driven a lot of engagement. That's a good thing.
The new homologated bodywork, that pretty much everyone is obliged to buy, then yes, I agree there's big issues there.
By the way motorsport with real full-on engineering tend to pay drivers. Motorsports that don't have engineering... the burden of cost falls upon the driver.