This a motor that I didn’t know existed until late last year – and is a great use of an engine designed for other purposes. Motoring Weekly recently wrote about Coventry Climax racing engines and they repurposed water pump engines that went into cars!
Late last year I was looking at Karting New South Wales with a view to joining their board. Sadly I didn’t get on it, however in my research into the organisation, I was lead down an interesting path: one of the 26 clubs in the association was Subaru Karting NSW who (naturally) run four stroke Subaru engines. Another one was the 4 Stroke Karting Association of NSW. It was the first time I had seen a major manufacturer involved in grass roots karting.
Subaru’s industrial division produces a range of very small displacement engines for use with pumps, generators and other equipment. These are typically four stroke, overhead cam engines and so like Coventry Climax, Subaru have repurposed one of the smaller motors and renamed it from EX21 to KX21 – presumably the “K” means Karting!
The motor is an air cooled 211cc single cylinder with an upgraded combustion chamber to change the compression ratio from 8.5:1 to 10:1 for higher output. Other changes over the standard motor include better air intake flow and ignition timing. Power is improved by 30% over the original motor to 9.2hp. Fundamentally, the only common component between the EX21 and KX21 motors is the cylinder block – it appears that everything else has been changed, either to be bigger or to allow a smoother flow of air or exhaust. Every change improves the overall performance of the engine for racing purposes.
This is a great way to embed your name into future car owners – karting has drivers that start as early as possible!
Karting NSW needs some better grounded thinking and it is a shame you didn’t get to be part of driving that. I, with three others, drove the CAMS takeover of AKA back in the 80’s. Had an experience with KNSW about 2 years ago re my son who raced and that revealed many deep flaws. Despite my involvement basically sorting the issue, he was so disgusted in their behaviours he never went back to race, and now has other pursuits. I saw so many abuses of process and flawed administration I figured it was time to drive another reset in the game. However CAMS is now a very different animal to then and they have little interest in getting involved in fixing up karting if there aren’t things like major accidents and the like going wrong. They care little for ‘spirit of sport / fair play’s stuff. I retain my 30+ year CAMS silver steward qualification, not sure how long I’ll bother but. Sadly, a lot of the ‘older hands’ have somewhat similar views. It is all fixable, just needs a group of 3 or 4 capable individuals that want to get in and have a go. So do have another go again as that’s the only way (I understand) to get the AKA to reset the key stuff.
If you’re wondering what needs fixing, ask the karters. Especially the winners. Oh for sure you’ll hear some crap, but the themes will soon emerge and at least 80% of it is fixable. Good luck with this pursuit, it is worth persevering with.
Karting NSW has got into a battle for the sport. They are working to distance themselves from Karting Australia and to align directly with CAMS. However, CAMS is standing behind Karting Australia, so we are seeing a form of “krexit”! I expect Karting NSW will work to bring the sport back to the people that most want it, at a price (hopefully) that will encourage young drivers to give it a go. Without this scrap, I think karting as a sport would die on the vine in NSW.