UK Karting - Notice Board (General Karting) : Re: wheel bearings

Notice Board (General Karting)

Re: wheel bearings
Posted by 'SimonS' on 12 Jan 2014 @ 00:02

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SimonSJoined: December 2004
Total Posts: 4
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Ceramic bearings are known to be sensitive to contamination as well as being significantly expensive.

In theory, they should be faster, have less friction when first installed, but lose all that advantage the moment the balls chip. The chipping is microscopic and can be the result of road grit.

Steel bearings can perform better under those conditions.

An experiment you can do is to put the usual 'deep groove' bearings in without a spacer and tighten up the nut. spin the wheel. You will find that by tightening the wheel you can stop all motion.

This is similar to the effect when the sideways motion of the kart places an axial load (ie along the stub axle).

There are a variety of ways to stop that axial load, from thrust bearings to angular contact bearings, meaning that there is less friction in the bearing during cornering. again, angular contact bearings can be overstressed and will cost something like 8 times the simple bearing price.

Like many other things, buying bearings that do the job better can make improvements, but one needs to confirm the improvements with a stopwatch and doing a cost/benefit analysis. If you might get 100th of a second by fitting new ceramic bearings every heat, but it costs you Ł150 each time (Ł600 per race day!) but spending that money on time in the seat and finding 1/2 a second, which is the better bargain?

Message Thread:

wheel bearings by 'CrescentRacer' (09 Jan 2014 @ 23:40)

Re: wheel bearings by 'fatsam' (10 Jan 2014 @ 2:00)

Re: wheel bearings by 'Bob' (10 Jan 2014 @ 7:41)

Re: wheel bearings by 'buzzinrussell' (10 Jan 2014 @ 11:52)

Re: wheel bearings by 'itpro' (10 Jan 2014 @ 16:44)

Re: wheel bearings by 'Bassrace' (10 Jan 2014 @ 18:17)

Re: wheel bearings by 'SimonS' (10 Jan 2014 @ 17:35)

Re: wheel bearings by 'CrescentRacer' (10 Jan 2014 @ 22:08)

Re: wheel bearings by 'fatsam' (10 Jan 2014 @ 23:49)

Re: wheel bearings by 'Bob' (11 Jan 2014 @ 7:37)

Re: wheel bearings by 'AndyOxfordshire' (11 Jan 2014 @ 10:05)

Re: wheel bearings by 'PoppaAl' (11 Jan 2014 @ 11:33)

Re: wheel bearings by 'buzzinrussell' (11 Jan 2014 @ 21:41)

Re: wheel bearings by 'kezz99' (11 Jan 2014 @ 22:17)

Re: wheel bearings by 'SimonS' << You are here!

Re: wheel bearings by 'Ditch' (12 Jan 2014 @ 0:31)

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