The importance of balancing kart racing tires cannot be overstated. Most people wouldn’t even consider putting a tire on their car or truck that hasn’t been balanced. However, some of those same people will fit a new tire to their racing kart and not balance it at all. The truth is that it is much more important to balance kart racing tires than any other tire. Even when using today’s fully machined kart racing wheels, balancing is necessary. There are various styles of kart racing tire balancers on the market. If you have metric wheels instead of American pattern wheels, you will need a set of metric adapters. Every karter must balance all his karting tires before putting tires on go kart.
With the purchase of a go kart racing tire balancer, anyone can learn how to balance tires for their racing kart. Also for the balancer you will need a permanent marker, wheel weights, scissors or cutter and some racing tape. Then just follow the instructions below:
1. Attach the wheel to the hub and slide the hub onto the axle.
2. Center the wheel on the spindle and place the ends of the spindle on the sides of the balancer.
3. Spin the wheel slightly and let it stop on its own.
4. Mark the wheel at the top with a marker. You have now determined the lightest point of the wheel.
5. Cut a piece of weight and attach it to the wheel using racing tape for now. Try to bring the weight as close to the axis as possible.
6. Now turn the wheel until the weight is at the 3:00 or 9:00 position.
Release the wheels. If the weight falls at the 6:00 position, you need to remove some weight. If the weight goes to the 12 o’clock position, more weight must be added.
7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 until the tire is balanced. This has been achieved when the weight can be placed in any position and the tire does not move.
8. Then remove the tape from the runners, reattach the weight to the same location by removing the paper from the back of the wheel weight. Apply a small piece of racing tape over the weight to make sure it doesn’t move. You have now balanced your first racing kart wheel.
I have been asked several times how much faster the go kart can do this. Most likely the answer is 1 to 3 tenths of a second per turn. That’s not much, but racing, of any kind, is a game that consists of perhaps a hundred little things. So while a tenth of a second isn’t much, if you find 10 things that give you a lot more speed, suddenly it’s a whole second. And that’s a lot on any track!
Racing kart tire balancers are sold at many kart shops including mine http://smokinjoeracing.com