2022 VLR Roll Call

[evannadeau]

Weights don't really matter to me too much, other than lifting onto my trolly. I've already got an extra 35lbs of lead on the kart. Adding another 5 lbs probably wouldn't be a big deal, but after hosting it up a few times, I might consider dropping to senior.

I see no benefit in adding a seal to the engine. I'd be cutting it off every couple of weeks as I go in for inspections, cleaning, etc.

[Mark]

The point is that you CAN'T cut it off. The seal shows that the motor has not been modified to gain an advantage.

The VLR has a great advantage that anyone can work on it -however it is also a flaw in the competitive sense since those with deep wallets will have them dyno'd, blueprinted and dyno'd again. they can (and will !) also rebuild every few races to get the most out of the motor.

Perhaps the biggest reason Briggs LO206 has become so popular is because it's sealed and since you can't dick with it, you focus your attention on setup and driving.

I'd really prefer if everyone was 100% honourable and would just pull the motor from the box and run it; rebuilt it stock once a year and be done with it. But that's naive so what do we do about it ?

History has shown us (with the Yamaha KT100 and ICC classes) that if we don't seal it, the class WILL, eventually, become a battle of the wallets.

Just something we should think about and perhaps discuss a little.

[evannadeau]

Again, I disagree with sealing it. There is nothing to modify internally, and very little advantage to gain from rebuilding it often.

The Rotax and Briggs classes are the places for the sealed engines. Sealing this one will take away all advantages of keeping this class less expensive.

[rob_slv]

Hi guys,

I am new to the ROK VLR program and am getting up to speed with the great discussions.

Mark does raise a valid point but in reality, in club racing we are just racing for a plastic trophy - if someone wants to speed $2-3k in putting non-compliant parts have at it. Upon post-race inspection, if the engine is found non-compliant then it gets the serial number flagged and reported as non-compliant and cannot be used in competition. My reason for racing the engine package is to rebuild it on my own. ROK Mini and VLR in the US are refreshing the engines every 10 hrs, is that necessary, probably not in club racing. John Kwong ran his engine (one of the first batches used in Calgary) for a season and a half until it was refreshed.

I vote no seals at all or ever.

Rob

[Cyruspischke]

I won't be racing VLR this year, but I'd like to throw my 2c in on the sealed vs. unsealed debate. The biggest advantage that the VLR has in this club right now is the ability to work on it yourself. No other engine in the club right now allows this (unless you want to spurt big lumps of money on a shifter, which as a class is a whole other ball game anyway).

Now, I can see how a sealed engine could benefit parity. It becomes much more difficult to illegally modify your engine. Can't deny that.

Of course, a sealed engine also raises costs when it's time for a service - you now have to bring the engine to a certified shop and pay labour costs. Obviously, this can be significantly more expensive than doing it yourself, which hurts the main attraction of this engine.

Now, looking at where the class is right now in terms of competition and growth, I don't really think it makes sense to start sealing engines. I think it would stunt the growth of the class (and, by extension, the club, as this is a fairly friendly class towards newcomers). At the moment, I don't see anyone running extra short maintenance intervals or (obviously) cheating for a competitive edge. People will try to have the freshest engine possible for big races, but that's normal for any class, sealed or otherwise. I could see it becoming an issue down the road if the class really takes off here in western Canada, but we just aren't there yet.

If the day comes where the cost of being competitive is starting to spiral out of control (a symptom of success, generally), we might look at a slightly less restrictive measure, like dated seals. With any seal (Rotax, Briggs), it's only effective for the weekend, then if the driver wants they can take and have it touched up for the next weekend, but they have to pay a shop to do it (a key discouragement, though at higher levels it's often done anyway). At ROK events however, after the weekend is over you are free to cut the seal and do all the work you like to it yourself, and it's resealed after qualifying at the next event. However, at a club level, that could be stretched out to a 2 or 3 month interval, or whatever is best for the maintenance cycle of these engines. If you go through tech with a broken seal within that period, you take a penalty of some kind. After that time period is up, you can cut the seal and do whatever work is needed to be done to the engine yourself, and present the engine for a fresh seal at the next race day, at which point the interval begins again. Again, I don't think the class is at a point where that's needed, but it might be something to consider if it starts suffering from success and being very competitive.

With all this in mind, also remember that we have a protest system in place to discourage cheating. If you think someone's modified their engine illegally, use it! The difficulty of cheating is the only real advantage I see to sealing. Those with enough money can still pay to have their engines dyno'd and blueprinted by a well reputed shop, and those who are looking for every edge are likely doing this already anyway, so a seal doesn't change how much they spend, only keeps them honest, same as an effective protest system. The seals will, however, increase the costs of those who are a more grassroots effort and are rebuilding engines themselves.

[evannadeau]

I do believe even at sealed engine events, you can do repairs/rebuilds to your engine under the correct conditions. That may be showing the new/removed parts and re-presenting the engine for a re-seal. Or perhaps it was to perform the repair in front of techs in a designated area.

I was looking for the information on this but I can't find it right now. I'll share it here if I ever find it.


Great feedback Cyrus. Thanks.

[dvelpel]

Thought I pressed submit on this...

I did add a fuel vote as it was brought up by a member.

Great discussion around the engine seal, and I think we are seeing great examples of both viewpoints. I believe Mark brought it up as something we should look out for, do we feel we want to add this as a voting item?

My perceptive (and sourcing from different peoples viewpoints), I don't feel that the class is big enough to warrant this type of restriction at this time. That being said I think there is a middle ground. For big events such as North of 49 (thinking more multi day events) we could recorded sn# and use a timed seal to ensure that a single sealed engine is used from the start to the final race, once the event is over you can cut the seal. This would also mean rules around "what if the seal is cut" need to be created. For general club racing I don't think a seal has much value, we could request that our engines get tech'd after the final which happened on the very last race. I wasn't much of a fan for this as you now have the pleasure of buying new gaskets and such to put your engine back together. I personally don't think we have seen any examples of engine tampering to date, I do think we have seen an examples of different engine refresh schedules.

This is a step up class, the engine is simple; yes. but that doesn't mean everyone is an engine builder or feels comfortable playing around with the internals. Dismantling the engine in tech may scare people away, not because of bending the rules, just because the anxiety of having to but the engine back together themselves or others.

I'll be transparent on my schedule to date. I've refresh the top end (piston/ring) over each winter. I think my bottom end started to show signed near the latter end of the year (2nd year running) so I'll be refreshing that this year as well.

[Cyruspischke]

I do believe even at sealed engine events, you can do repairs/rebuilds to your engine under the correct conditions. That may be showing the new/removed parts and re-presenting the engine for a re-seal. Or perhaps it was to perform the repair in front of techs in a designated area.

I think that is correct, most places you are permitted to break the seal or replace the engine during the event only with permission from the designated authority (tech supervisor?).

[John Kwong]

At the ROK Vegas event you registered your race engine serial number and a spare engine serial number for the event. At Pre-Tech they sealed both motors so that no internal alterations could be done during the event. If you did well enough to be called into Post Race Tech, they would then inspect the motor to make sure it was within the rules. It was up to the competitor to know that their motor was in compliance before the seal went on.

IMO having a seal at club level racing won't make the racing any closer or cheaper. VLR is the only single speed class that has an inkling of how karting was before Spec classes and engine seals were implemented.
The natural path of any growing class is more competition and racers looking for any advantage. Having a seal isn't going to stop someone from buying a blue printed motor and racing it here or a second motor. The present path is fine. As long as any VLR motor passes tech it is eligible to race.

What has been done for many years at national events is to use paint to seal motors. Certain parts such as a head bolt are painted so that if the paint is cracked when it is inspected in post race tech it will be assumed to have been tampered with during the event.

Honestly, these motors are nicely built and quite equal. Driving and chassis set-up are the biggest factors.

John K

[Fred]

To be honest, I'm probably the only one that has rebuilt these engines on a regular basis and that is only because at COA myself and Jimmy completely tear them apart clean and rebuild them on a daily basis... ( we don't split cranks) There really is very little you can do to these motors to gain a performance over each other and We can build a better faster engine than ones reportably blue printed .. its all down to toperances. Where the performance of these motors comes from (and was the same in my 100cc days ) is the Carb. Rebuilding your carb regularly is vital and at COA we will rebuild them after every round. These kits are cheap and very easy to do yourself. Grab a pop off pump and do it yourself.
Sealed motors as mentioned are not a big problem as they are easily inspected and as noted above any engine found to have been altered will have the serial number recorded , distributed across the ROK network and will not be eligible to be raced. At ROK events you seal your own .. nobody looks at it and it's you that guarentee its legal and if found illegal at post race inspection we guess what the above applies. One of the reasons this motor was introduced was to introduce low cost racing .. unlike other motors, it's not in our interest to mandate a shop has to work on it .. leave that to the other classes. TBH any shop worth their competetive status is also opening up the other motors refreshing them and resealing them as well (its only money and some people don't mind spending it, so what's the difference)?
We can manage this through tech inspections and integrity .. As usual if you want to spend $1000s on a $5 trophy come and see me and I'll give you one for free . No club likes cheaters and once labeled as one you might as well sell up and move on as nobody will want to race with you.
Learn to strip and rebuild these, they really are very easy to do and very satisfying to do yourself.