Yup the ZIP-eagle is a fickle chassis, but we love it and swamped by competitors running project-1's and i'm just not interested in making the jump, sure the Zip is harder to set up, but once you know what you are doing, and what suits your driver, its a dream to work with.
Regarding F1 wheel colors, just take a closer look at the grid next lime they are lined up, you will see a mish-mash of silver and black wheels, also read this link below, but yes I can imagine a given team dont change their rim coulours through the season
http://www.f1technical.net/development/433
they use the black coating on the inner rim to use the radiated brake heat to heat up the rim, which keeps heat in the tyre when going down long straights, not applicable to karting as we dont have brakes in the rims, but the logic is of interest to general kart tyre heat management. Also the thickness of the coating has a huge effect, big thick powder coating is a no-no otherwise it acts as an insulator - not good.......just a light dusting only a few microns thick is required.
You will also hear people refer to certain rims as "low volume" which implies there is less mass of aluminium to heat-sink / cool the tyre, so the tyre will heat up quicker, this is another benefit of the mustard wet rims, as they are 10-13% lighter than the dry rims, therefore heat up quicker when using slicks
best of luck B-)
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