Raceinstructor says two things in his post.
Firstly that everything makes a difference, but secondly that there are so many variables that it is more or less impossible, at the karting level, to identify exactly what contributes to what change and by how much.
As to whether seat stays can make a difference, I suspect that I am not the only one who has tried finite element analysis on a kart model and found that the effects are often less predictable than one expects. (I started after discovering on a particular aircraft that a concentration in stress at the firewall was actually cured by putting in a n additional layer of composite material close to the tail, whereas logic would say that it was caused by the engine mounting ).
So the extra effectiveness is possible due to a direct loadpath from the seat to the axle hanger, instead of being distributed by the seat through the four fixing points and then around the chassis, with the degree being modified by the amount the driver actually leans. Obviously another factor one would have to consider is the driver's core strength and the amount of load actually put directly onto the seat stay.
The answer would vary from driver to driver, with some seeing a greater effect than others.
Once one started taking all the effects into action, one might find that instead of adding seat stays, one put the driver on a course of Pilates to get the same effect.
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