"That could explain the imbalance as my engine package is slightly heavier than normal (24.5 kg inc rad, battery, fluids) "
From the Rotax site (and you may not be driving a Rotax), the power pack includes:
silencer, carburetor, fuel pump, engine, exhaust system, radiator, battery, battery box, cable harness, start button, ON/OFF switch
and the weight of the power pack doubles the weight of the bare engine.
"bare engine: 12,0 kg / 26,5 lbs
with complete power pack: 23,6 kg / 58,6 lbs"
However things aren't quite as bad as they seem because it is the moments (weight * distance) that are important, so things like the battery has a moment of 600kgmm (2*300) to the left, the moment of the exhaust is probably roughly neutral and so on.
But , yes, attaching the radiator to the engine (especially when it is done by a bit of rubber hose) and not allowing the radiator to be placed on the left (attached to the engine by a bit longer hose) seems to be regulation for the sake of it rather than a logical approach to karting especially as many of the other watercooled classes run with the radiator on the left.
But this seems to be a problem with some of the MSA brokered decisions, they simply don't seem to make sense.
(in another class, one can only replace the water hose with a hose from the importer, rather than a hose of the same size bought from radiator hose suppliers at substantially less cost. It is claimed that this is because the engine is described as being supplied "out of the box" (ie ready to go with no extra work needed) and at a meeting of the Engineering Committee, one member insisted that this had to mean that any spares/ replacements had to be the same as were supplied in the box. One has the suspicion that the truth is somewhat different but it is on such stories that the intense dissatisfaction with "the MSA" is based.
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