Errrrrr......
4 Stokes are GREAT; nothing out there gets CLOSE the to quality, reliability and PERFORMANCE of the 4 stroke Aixro! Nor the purchase COST! Unless it's a pair of Hondas.... forget the rest....
However, you seem to be a newbie and, I assume, you want to keep costs low AND do your own maintenance. In that case, the answer is simple.... buy a TWO STROKE! Look at the COSTS, you can probably buy THREE secondhand 2 stroke TKM BT82 for the price of ONE secondhand TKM 4 stroke, Biland or any OTHER 'classy' 4 stroke motor.
The rebuild work, the spares, the skill required on a BT82 is WELL within your abilities if you can service a 4 stroke. Even if you leave the complex stuff (where you need specialist equipment, e.g. splitting and truing a crank) to professional tuners for a MICROSCOPIC costs. A spilit and trued crank for a TKM BT82 will cost about £20! Every single OTHER job, you can do for yourself with MINIMAL tools.
Ok.. you want relaiability.... simple.... buy TWO of them and 4 carbs (if you must). At worst, if one engine fails on the day (a VERY rare event if you are any sort of mechanic.... and if you feel good enough to modify a chassis to take a honda 390 then you MIST have some abilities!)... then all you do is bolt on the OTHER engine! The all-time record for changing a kart engine (in a race) is held (if my memory serves me correctly) by Reg Dormer at..... TWELVE SECONDS!
If you really are a mechanical numpty, get eac h carb rebuilt by a professional each time you use it (about £15 a time) and get a professional to rebuild each engine after 30 (or so) hours of use. You can HUGELY increasing this running time by cutting the revs by just 1000 rpm. The general rule is that you DOUBLE the usable life of the rebuild by each time you reduce the rev limit by 1000 rpm.... so 15,000 rpm = approx 30 hours, 14,000 would be 60 hours and 13000 would be 120 hours...
Atr the end of each season, get them rebuilt regardless of usage.
With that set up, you will have largely trouble free karting at a LOWER purchase price and a LOWER running cost! You could pay most of the costs by selling one or two of those chassis...... Trust me, you willp learn almost NOTHING about the qualities of each menufacturer's product by trying 'used' copies of teir product. On day-one they would have been SO close to identiocal lap times that only the VERY best karters could use the differences between them. Their performance when second hand is down to the LIFE they have lived. The one that has been best looked after, least kerbed, leacst hours, least crashed, least modified will be the BESAT of them totally REGARDLESS of the make of the chassis!
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What Engine For A Rotax Chassis Need Reliable by 'XTREMEK8RTS' (30 Dec 2009 @ 11:05)
