Go-Karting for children ought to be safe, and one of the great methods of ensuring safety is by limiting the go-kart’s speed. The most practical and easiest method of slowing down the Go-Kart is by changing its gear ratio. If the Go-Kart has a low gear ratio, it’ll have lower top speed but high acceleration (more torque). What’s Gear Ratio? It’s the ratio of angular speed of the Axle and Shaft of the engine.

How Can You Lower The Gearing (Lower The Top Speed)?

There are three methods of lowering the gearing:

  • Installing the Axle sprocket with more teeth.
  • Acquiring a clutch with less number of teeth in the clutch sprocket.
  • Installing the Jackshaft

Axle Sprocket:

The axle is the component to which the back wheels are attached; it contains the circular sprocket that has a chain. The sprocket has numerous teeth (usually 60, 54, and 72 teeth). The simplest method of lowering gearing (and lowering the top speed) is to actually acquire the Axle sprocket that has more teeth than the current one.

Usually, the 60 teeth and 54 teeth axle sprockets are utilized on go-karts. Utilizing the seventy-two teeth Sprocket will decrease the gearing.

Clutch Sprocket With Less Teeth:

Frequently, clutches have 11, 10, 12, or 14 teeth in a clutch sprocket. The top speed will be lower if the number of teeth in the clutch sprocket is lower.

Jackshaft:

The great method of lowering the speed and lowering the gearing is actually to install the Jackshaft.

It can be too much work, but it’s very helpful, let me explain, and if you acquire a larger Axle sprocket, it may begin to touch the ground, and clutches do not provide a lot of choices. You can practically gear down the go-kart for extremely low speed with Jackshaft, which is not really practical with Clutch and Axle sprockets.

Drawbacks Of Limiting Speeds By Lowering Gears And Alternative Methods:

When you lower the gear ratio, it’ll reduce the top speed but simultaneously, it’ll upsurge the acceleration. The high acceleration can be terrifying for children. It is great not to have large engines on the child’s Go-karts. Big-block engines with high Torque and high acceleration because of the low gearing can be unsafe.

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