15/06/2021
It’s a fact that the most successful and accomplished categories are those that offer engines that are simple to use and easy to manage, not those with the most power ever. In our opinion, in the specific case of karting, air cooling still has a more than valid reason for existence, starting precisely from the general simplicity it guarantees. Anyone who does not have blinders on can indeed observe how in kart engines (with the sole exception of the Rotax Max) the arrangement of the water-cooling system is completely botched: huge radiators compared to the displacement. Several pieces of pipe, (and clamps all around to be tightened...), the need to adjust the curtain on the radiator by hand, and so on.
Air cooling on a kart engine does not diminishes its technical prestige: add that a simpler kart is also lighter and thus has greater performance. It allows even the heaviest drivers to race competitively, with the same minimum regulatory weight. Another aspect often not considered as much as it deserves to be is that a lighter kart affects the tires less, stresses them to a lesser extent, so they maintain their performance longer and last longer with the same other characteristics, with related economic advantages. The latter, moreover, are increased with constructive simplicity for the simple fact that what is not there… does not cost! Who’s up for air cooling? Share your opinion on that..
