Truenotch

Yip, the kit turned up and should work awesome if I can get the master unseized.

You could add a relay that will prime the pump when you flick the ignition on?

That's interesting smokinjoe. I might look at sleeving over the threaded rod to add more strength. I've got lots of extra though, so mightgive it a go first and see what happens. What application caused the bent rods for you? Grass kart? I'm keen to hear more about the first one... Need two so we can have races at 10-5's house.

I'll join the doort-off .

If it has a small electric pump it should be fine in theory. Give it a go and if it doesn't work there seem to be a few options for small electric pumps around.

Ooh, that'll be the one! I was drawing blanks on the pullstart when googling for information.That appears to be exactly what it is! I've been mucking around trying to get the steering right. Got a few ideas from race kart steering arms and ended up making very long arms and welding them on. The old ones were only about 50mm long and the new ones are more like 150mm. I've made it with a lot less ackerman than the "suggested" method of pointing at the centre of the axle - this is because most of the race karts I've looked at don't have much ackerman. It turns this way: And that way: Rounded the arms off and gave them a lick of paint to stop them from rusting: Also cleaned and painted the motor mount area:

They get powered by either vacuum from the inlet manifold or you can also use crank case pressure. My engine has a clear tube coming out of the crank case already that I assume will work for one of these pumps. On the 4stroke karts that run GX200's in the states they tap a fitting into the valve cover and add pressure from there. I think they'll work with either pressure or vacuum.

Can anyone see a reason why a 250cc 4 stroke vacuum fuel pump wouldn't work on my 175 2 stroke? http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=934561336

The rollbar is probably a good idea. I'm not fitting a rollbar though...

There's still a problem though. Your pads shouldn't fall out even when they're down to bare metal and bare metal is better than nothing. When there's no pad you lose a lot of pedal pressure and the car just doesn't stop, but bare metal will still bring you to a halt eventually. Maybe it's just a 101 thing?

Seems like these are the type of fuel pump that most karts use. One line is fuel in, one is fuel out, the other is "pulse" from the inlet or crank case.

Does anyone know how the fuel is pumped from the tank to the carb on most karts? I'm keen for a plastic tank between my legs, but this engine is designed for gravity feed. I think there are axle mounted pumps that you can get but I can't find much info on them. This kart already has a cam screwed onto the axle, so I can probably fit one easily.

I pulled a few bits off the engine today for a closer look. After removing the self-mix pump cover I got a surprise - turns out it's a Yamaha, not a Suzuki as advertised. I'm pretty happy about this because Yamaha's are the shit! It also means that it might end up on the little Yamaha YB50 that I have sitting at Matangi.... After a healthy dose of grass skids of course. I'm pretty sure it's a DT175, which appears to be a bit more performance oriented than a TS185 Suzuki. An added bonus is that one of my customers is a Yamaha dealer, so I have a good parts source and knowledge base if needed. Under the clutch cover it's all nice and clean. I gave the clutch plates a wee wiggle and they don't seem to be stuck together, so I think the clutch should work OK after it's done a bit of work. I think the sticky clutch might be due to being a wet setup. I've cable tied it on which is a common trick and apparently it's also useful to run it up in 6th gear on a stand until the oil gets nice and hot, then it should free up. Looks reasonable under the pull start cover too. The CDI etc all seems to be in decent condition. Had a look through the exhaust port to get an idea of what the cylinder condition is like - there's a bit of scoring on the cylinder wall and a bit on the piston, but I've seen worse. I might pull it apart and give the cylinder and crank case a good clean out to make sure it's going to be all good. Next up is giving everything a good clean and then I can work on putting it back together and sorting out the steering geometry. Little bit of inspiration: http://youtu.be/Cv43JfE9_eg

Owning a gokart has been a bit of a life long dream for me, so when 10-5 bought his new house and suggested we build karts to skid around on the paddock I was excited. After a bit of mucking around thinking about building one I ended up searching trademe and found a mad little creation. I happened to be sitting next to VG's mad 750cc kart project at the time and all the boys in Whakatane were in support of me buying the one I'd found, so I negotiated a price with the advertiser and god Lee to pick it up from Havelock North for me. It's powered by a 185cc 2 stroke dirt bike engine and 5 speed box. It's a Suzuki and the pull start leads me to believe it's probably from an Ag bike - Probably a TS185. This how it looked when I picked it up: There are a few things to do on it... The engine wasn't bolted in properly, it only had one bolt at the front as the rear one didn't even have a nut. The seat needs to be mounted and the shifter was mounted on a ball joint which meant the shifter flopped around in all directions instead of just forwards and backwards. I'll be changing the direction of the shifter too since it was set up for 1 back and 4 forward - not very racecar! The clutch doesn't seem to disengage either, so I'll need to do some research on these engines and boxes to figure out how to get that going. It also needs some form of brake caliper to work with the rotor that's on there, a better steering wheel and some work on the steering setup at the front. So I need to do those things, mount the fuel tank, add an airbox and filter and we're away skidding. I had a play with it today and chopped a few things off. Here's where it's at: Need to have this finished in a month for Paddock Bash!

Ahh, the old brake pad falling out trick... Check your rotor thicknesses and keep an eye on your pads to make sure it doesn't happen again. I had an incident when racing Rhys's AE101 once at 160kph going into Higguns... The front of the car wasn't that happy about it.

Hurry up and finish this so I can do a feature about it on the blog! Amazing.

Awesome! Done.

I like everything that's going on here. When? October?

Amy Hamiltonians heading up? I have a small FSR to get from Richy.

Everytime I see an update for this it makes me happy.

Trimmed up and smoothed out the old shock cups to give ample clearance and better aesthetics. Then I test fitted the shock on the drivers side and it fitted perfectly without fouling on the adjuster knobs - no modification required! Almost time to clean and paint that area. My 2014/15 season pics turned up too - here's a few highlights: Maximum wheel tuck!

They're close to parallel with the ground, but are slightly lower at the diff end.

Yeah, it turns into a squat monster! I did it when I first lowered it and at was amazing in the rain, but was pushy and lazy in the dry. I guess it might work better with a higher spring rate, but I'm fairly happy with the rear geometry as it is.

Could work as a starting point if there are Aucklanders coming down?

Did a bit of mucking around today to get make the old spring caps and shaft extensions work. These shocks are actually slightly longer, so I had to trim the extensions to get the same total length and also trim the cup where the standard shocks used to mount. It's all reinforced from the other side so I don't think the cup needs to be there. The shock fits well this way, but that hides the adjusters behind the brake disc. This isn't a big deal, but would make it hard to adjust the shocks on the fly... So I did a bit of trimming and managed to find some clearance on the other side: Next is tidy up all the bits I've trimmed, CLEAN the hell out of everything and paint things. I'll get some new rear wheel bearings and seals while it's apart too.