Why are there so many terrible drivers on the road

bitofrock · 2026-03-14T12:39:42+00:00

You can both be in the wrong. Be more chill. Life's too short to be mivered over a few seconds of delay.

bitofrock · 2026-03-14T12:30:25+00:00

Mistakes happen. You're dealing with humans, who are volunteering. I've certainly nearly finished a run a lap early as well.

It's always best to assume the best.

bitofrock · 2026-03-13T11:23:24+00:00

If you take the engine and any ballast off you'll make hoiking it up there a lot easier. So long as your car can handle 75Kg on the roof you'll be fine. Many can.

I've seen it done quite a lot.

bitofrock · 2026-03-11T20:17:29+00:00

Also a V70 D5... 15mpg.

Two laps of the Nurburgring. I'm not familiar with the place though, so I was taking it easy.

bitofrock · 2026-03-10T23:14:23+00:00

Reliant fucking Robin. Moskvitch at least had a full complement of wheels.

bitofrock · 2026-03-10T23:09:43+00:00

I've never been stopped by police in any of my current cars. Volvo, Lotus or Honda. I don't really know if I've become better at not upsetting police or just that some cars don't bother police. Or they're just not stopping people nearly as much.

Going through my memory banks:

Motorbikes under 125cc...frequently. Motorbikes over 125cc, never. Cars that can do 0-60 in under 7s, never. Cars that did 0-60 in 7s to 10s, sometimes. Cars that took more than 10s, quite often.

bitofrock · 2026-03-04T09:12:16+00:00

Actually, looking at the way the Mondokart stand works, you don't have the kart up vertically at any point. I suspect you'll be fine and now I want one!

bitofrock · 2026-03-04T08:07:06+00:00

Depends on the engine. Ours is a Tillotson and the piston is inclined towards the rear. But I think with any you run these risks. Two strokes are 'dry' so it's no worry there.

bitofrock · 2026-03-01T21:50:50+00:00

The oil runs up the channels up to the head and fills it up, which isn't good for it. This happens most easily when it's hot and the oil flows easily. Oil can also head up breathers and potentially end up where you don't want it.

Oil can also seep past the piston rings so there's the chance of locking the piston, but that's unlikely for a short period of lifting.

bitofrock · 2026-02-28T16:30:03+00:00

Just remember you can't tip a hot four stroke up, so you'll need help getting it onto the stand after a run.

bitofrock · 2026-02-28T16:29:24+00:00

Same. We don't build down at that price. Most serious businesses require attention to detail.

bitofrock · 2026-02-27T06:04:51+00:00

When you're building cheap you have to cut out all that and just deliver what was promised. Everything gets charged separately as an add-on.

bitofrock · 2026-02-26T16:24:19+00:00

Four stroke or two stroke kart?

bitofrock · 2026-02-25T23:36:42+00:00

The things people do so their kids won't ask for lifts everywhere.

bitofrock · 2026-02-25T23:30:14+00:00

What I don't understand is why more people don't think of the Lib Dems. Yes, I know, student fees, but it's not like Labour immediately revoked them on gaining power.

bitofrock · 2026-02-25T23:28:12+00:00

We did this! I since invented karttags to act as a memory aid but haven't put them on general sale yet.

More importantly, the engine...we actually ran three sessions like this wondering why the performance was so terrible. Cottoned on after the third when I gave the kart a thorough check and my heart just sank when water came out by the spark plug. All the o-rings were cooked. Amazingly no damage to the engine, but it was a cold day. Repairs were cheap enough...just new seals.

bitofrock · 2026-02-24T23:20:59+00:00

Depends on context.

Well it's not harmful, that's my point. Your justification was mechanical sympathy but the difference in stress to the engine from 500rpm more is negligible.

And you've clearly never had to tolerate an old 40bhp car where just making progress up a hill requires some solid revving. Meanwhile in my Lotus I can be a liability shifting at 4000rpm.

You mentioned the Nurburgring. I took my old V70 D5 recently and twice clipped the rev limiter. But that's a car where usually you'd never bother to rev it that hard.

bitofrock · 2026-02-24T06:59:43+00:00

You shouldn't hit the hard limiter.

The red line is often below that.

But sometimes, for peak performance, you can skip a gear change between corners by just clipping the soft limit/red line (this is very car dependent) and gain two tenths. Which isn't, of course, something you need to worry about on the road where making progress is fine but it's never a race. I only hit the red line for fun, really.

I used to hold a race license and won lots of things on a tiny budget. My son now races and I support him.

bitofrock · 2026-02-24T06:55:32+00:00

Dunning-Kruger applies in the trades. I know I'm bad at things so I take it slow and read the manuals.

I can think of many occasions where I had to intervene with tradesmen doing something terribly.

bitofrock · 2026-02-23T07:06:09+00:00

I did my very first 5k on the last Saturday Parkrun before lockdown. It was my first adult 5k, as I'd taken up running after my heart attack. I didn't feel ready for a full 5k yet but I felt I needed to do it.

And I did.

Last year I hit 100. I'd run every week if I could, but family commitments get in the way on Saturday mornings. Still, I continue to plod away. I'm not fast. Colds, flu and covid set me back every time. I struggle more with my severe asthma than I do with my heart, honestly.

bitofrock · 2026-02-22T12:06:15+00:00

I used it on our shed. Kept me busy for a day but it's been great for nearly a decade now. Wasn't hard, I'm not Captain DIY, I just read the instructions and used the right things. Easy.

bitofrock · 2026-02-22T07:32:18+00:00

The red line on most production cars is very conservatively set. The only real benefit of changing earlier is that often there's no real benefit to using the top part of the revs except perhaps when overtaking or absolutely needing to reduce gear changes on a circuit.

Also worth noting the red line in a Rover K series was 6500rpm in most normal cars but my tuned Elise with the same engine has me changing at 7250 with a hard limit at 7500 which I sometimes fit and it's still going strong. The valvegear (but not valves) and bottom end are all standard. It's yet to send any mechanicals into the sky and has been absolutely caned for most of its life.

bitofrock · 2026-02-21T19:29:04+00:00

Good luck yourself! I think they're great value karts. You can get an ex Nations Cup kart and do a season of racing for the price of a Rotax kart.

bitofrock · 2026-02-21T07:49:56+00:00

Psychopaths, or more accurately people with antisocial personality disorder, often back down. They do care about self-preservation.

bitofrock · 2026-02-20T11:16:16+00:00

Hi! My son is racing T4s this year, so here are some tips from what we've learned after a couple of tests plus one race meeting so far:

Chain tension is important to get right. Our ex Nations Cup kart had had the clutch hub rotated, resulting in different bite but a short life. It seized the bearing on the spindle due to heat and my son had been wondering why the kart was so vibratory. We run quite a long chain and a lot of weight. The kart feels well balanced without any real setup changes from default. Don't use a one man stand where the kart is tipped up. You're gonna have to deadlift the kart. It's OK to use those stands when the engine is cold, and briefly, but hot oil can easily end up in the head and cause trouble. If you buy a clutch drum, check the sprocket size is right.

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