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Bos

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Well, two go karts, actually :)

Can anyone give me some advice on tuning these things? The GX160 (think that's what we've got) is a fairly simple 5.5HP carb engine - you've probably got one on your lawn mower!

I'm off to camp (youth activity holiday) tomorrow, where among other things I'll be running the go karts - a couple of Biz grass karts. We run them on a fairly rough field where the vibration makes them go out of tune very quickly - I've adjusted the carbs before but by guesswork, which has been a bit hit and miss.

The Honda manual for the engine says it's pre-tuned and doesn't give any instructions - the one for the old version of the engine does, but it's got one less adjuster... I'd like to tune the karts up properly at the start of camp and then see if I can wire everything up so it stays that way.

Unfortunately I'm currently over a hundred miles from the karts, so I can't post any piccies.

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The Manual is right the unit comes pre tuned and these units are not eaisely tuned , the engine is fitted with a crank balance shaft which governs the revs .

You could upgrade to the GX 340 13 hp unit and are now made as a direct replacement by another company and are a fraction of the cost of honda.

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The Manual is right the unit comes pre tuned and these units are not eaisely tuned , the engine is fitted with a crank balance shaft which governs the revs .

You could upgrade to the GX 340 13 hp unit and are now made as a direct replacement by another company and are a fraction of the cost of honda.

They are quite easily tuned - there's a couple of adjusters on the carb. Bear in mind the application, too - it may well be governed for things like lawn mowers, but not on a go kart where you have a traditional throttle. Manually does have instructions for adjusting idle revs (wind in the throttle stop - doesn't get easier than that :) ), so I'm not sure if this one does come with a governer? I could have the wrong engine, of course - I checked on Biz karts website and it looks like the karts have been updated since we bought ours.

Frankly, 5.5HP is plenty in these little karts, especially with kids driving - in fact at this site I limit the throttle so they can't use full power. I want to tune them up properly so they're reliable not faster. When they go out of tune they start backfiring and/or stalling all the time.

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Before I signed my life away on the dotted line i used to have a 3185 as my daily drive. I worked for a agri contractor haulin everything from bales to silage to tracked excavators - seriously good bit of kit, especially when, ahem, tweaked...

We used to get loads of hassle of the tipper guys when we ran into quarries with the dump trailer - we could carry 20 ton (like them), do 55 mph loaded (like them), run cherry (unlike most of them!) and pay £160 RFL a year (about a tenth of theirs!!) - suffice to say we werent popular!

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monfort_1643.jpg

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[sad moment] Tesco frosted flakes are just as good, and a lot cheaper, especially if you get a 1-kilo box with 25% free[/sad moment]

Les. :)

yeah but you don't get a really annoying south afrian kid singin about them, so that makes them worthless i reckon.

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Tuning dunno - there's only so much to twiddle with on the carb anyway isn't there? If it's just the mixture screw coming loose then a dab of loctite or such should help.

As for a bit more perk - remove the governor on top of the block & wrap the spring round something so it holds it at maximum, generally unless they have a very long flat out section they'll never hit top revs anyway. The plastic governor gear inside can disintegrate too so if you do a rebuild I'd take it out. Other engines may be cheaper than the Honda but there's nowt stronger, those will take sooo much abuse and keep going.

A dash of Redex in the tank every so often will help too.

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