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Blackhawk Kart Guru in Florida
| Joined: | Tue Mar 28th, 2017 |
| Location: | North Orlando Area, Florida USA |
| Posts: | 156 |
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Welcome to the forum.
I vote for originality too. If you go back to original, you can probably get correct dimensions from somebody here that owns one of those karts. How tall are you? If you are 5'6" or taller, your knees might be around the steering wheel when driving the kart in its original length. If you look at any old karting books or magazines, this was normal for any racing kart from 1958 to about 1968. Around the late 60s to early 70s, karts started getting built longer for making the driver more comfortable. This did not mean the wheelbase got longer. They just let a driver stretch out their legs with a longer front porch forward of the front axle line. A lot of people have done this with older karts on this forum. Just ask for advise on front porch ideas.
If you keep the stretched frame as it is, Dan is correct in that it might not handle well. The previous owner probably had long legs and wanted his legs straighter. He accepted the poor handling as a trade-off for comfort. If you put a powerful enough engine on the back, you can negate some of the bad handling (an under-steering front end, the front just slides to outside of corners) by powering your way around corners forcing the rear to slide out, making the front to steer a little better. This is not the best thing to have in a racing vehicle, but it is fun to drive that way. You just go through tires faster.
In the end, it is your kart, so do what you want and have fun!
Kind Regards,
Joe
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