to say the rear end of a kart doesnt flex is just wrong. How do I know? I have modelled a kart chassis using FEA and then strain gauged the chassis so see what the similarities were between both. All I am prepared to say is the kart does things you wouldn't expect at all and it opened a whole new can of worms that I wasn't expecting to see. To say that weight transfer (shifting a drivers body) has no effect is also wrong. Dynamically with the strain gauges this made a huge difference. It would have been interesting to test the kart with strain gauges and seat stays also but I never got to that stage. Its clear that the only people who truely know about kart chassis dynamics are not present to declare the theories, everything else is just knowledge and experience that people have through testing. But look at formula one teams, mclaren last year would have believed they had developed a top car before actually testing it. With CFD and wind tunnel testing it possibly looked good but come the actual dynamic testing it turned out to be a dog. Seat stays can do one of three things, nothing, loose grip or gain grip. Lets not forget that they could have an effect on the stability of the kart under braking too. So many variables to contend with that what works on one chassis may not on another. Someone with the hardest seat in the world will find a difference to results of a test with the worlds softest seat. You will all argue until you are blue in the face but theres no point, as long as you feel content with results from testing, use them for your own gain.
|
|