"While we are talking about wheel nuts, why actually do we need nylocs or K Nuts? No other vehicles I know have locking nuts of any kind."
Not quite true. Many car wheels use locking nuts, it's just that they aren't in the form one expects or recognises.
If you use a lathe or mill you will be acquainted with 'taper locking', tools with a male taper are pushed into the female taper and are able to resist considerable turning forces.
The same principle is used in cars where the nuts or lugbolts are rounded or tapered and fit into a rounded or tapered seat formed in the wheel. This taper lock resists the turning effect trying to undo the nut / bolt, as well as positively locating the wheel.
Since we don't use taper locking on karts, we have to use some other form of locking,
The standard stud on a kart is 8mm and this calls for a standard 13mm AF nut, which has a diameter of 15mm across vertices.
some wheels, particularly mag wheels, are so thick that the wheels are counterbored to allow the nuts to be done up. Usually the counter bores are only 16 mm in diameter, so one cannot get a 13mm socket into the hole.
Hence one uses an undersize nut, 10mm AF with an 8mm thread. the most common form of lockable, undersize nut with an 8mm thread is the K-Nut because it is used in aviation.
The old tube nuts had a full size 13mm barrel but a 10mm extension for a 10mm socket. They were made illegal because it was too easy to bottom them out, leaving the wheel not secured even though the nuts were fully torqued up.
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