Rotax Kart Engines

Kart racing
History
Kart racing in the streets of Berlin in 1963
Art Ingels is generally accepted to be the father of karting. A veteran of Hot Rodder and builder of race car Kurtis Kraft, he built the first kart in Southern California in 1956. Karting has rapidly spread to other countries, and currently has a large audience in Europe.
The first kart manufacturer was an American company, Go Kart Manufacturing Co. (1958). McCulloch was the first company in 1959 to produce engines for karts. His first engine, the McCulloch MC-10, was an adapted chainsaw 2-stroke engine. Later in the 1960s, motorcycle engines were also adapted for kart use, before dedicated manufacturers, especially in Italy (IAME), started building engines for the sport.
Components
Chassis
Rear view of a current of the CIK-FIA approved kart powered by a KF
The chassis are tubular steel. There is no suspension therefore chassis have to be flexible enough to work as a suspension and stiff enough not to break or give way on a turn. Kart chassis are classified in the United States as "Open", "cage", "right" or "offset". All CIK-FIA approved chassis are "right" and "Open".
Open karts have no cage.
Caged karts have a roll cage surrounding the driver, they are mainly used on the tracks.
Straight chassis the driver sits in the center. right chassis are used for sprint races.
In Offset chassis the driver sits on the left side. Offset chassis are used for speedway races left turn only.
The rigidity of the chassis enables different handling characteristics for different circumstances. Typically, for dry conditions a stiffer chassis is preferable, while in wet or other poor traction, a more flexible chassis may work better. The best chassis stiffening bars to allow the rear, front and side to be added or deleted depending on race conditions.
Braking is achieved by a disc brake mounted on the rear axle. front disc brakes are becoming more popular, but some classes do not allow them.
Professionally raced karts typically weigh 165-175 pounds (75-79 kg), complete unmanned. Avanti, Tony Kart, Trulli, Birel, CRG, Gillard, Intrepid, Kosmic, Zanardi Kart or FA are well-known examples of many European manufacturers of quality racing chassis. Margay is an American producing kart chassis.
Motors
Amusement park go-karts can be powered by 4-stroke engines or electric motors, while the racing karts use small 2-stroke engines or four-stroke.
Go-karts are electric, low maintenance, requiring only that the lead-acid batteries to be plugged into the car a range of chargers after each execution. As they are without pollution and emit no smoke, the tracks can be indoors in controlled environments. A kart at full electrical charge can carry a maximum of 20 minutes before performance is affected.
4-stroke engines can be air-cooled engine industry standard based, sometimes with minor modifications, the development of about 5-20 hp. Briggs & Stratton, Tecumseh, Kohler, Robin, and Honda are manufacturers of these engines. They are suitable for kart racing and fun applications. There are also more powerful four-stroke engines available from manufacturers like Yamaha, TKM, Biland or Aixro (Wankel engine) with 15 hp to 48 hp. They run to and around 11,000 rpm, and are manufactured specifically for karting. They are used in some classes as the national championship twice.
engines 2-stroke karts are developed and manufactured by specialist manufacturers. Comer, IAME (Parilla, Komet), TM, Vortex, Titan, REFO, Yamaha and Rotax are manufacturers of these engines. They can grow from about 8 hp single cylinder 60 cc unit (MiniROK by Vortex) to 90 hp for a twin 250 cc. Today's most popular categories worldwide are those using the Touch-and-go (TAG) 125 cc units. The recent 125 cc.