should I buy a bigger engine than my friends?
me and a friend are building go-karts for the most part to keep the cost down we are buying the same matieral to build the frame and drive and steering system. engines is where we are having trouble I found one post on craigslist that has 3 5HP engines for sale all for 50$ thats one for each of us, but then the next day i saw another that had an 8HP engine being sold for 40$. one friend said it wouldnt be fair if he has a weaksauce engine while i have one near double his hp. the other friend does not know about this other engine. should i buy this engine i want to since i love speed and finding the engine was hard since were all building roughly the same kart I think i should get my say on what engine i put in it. my question is should i buy this engine or stick with one of the three 5HP engines that are being sold for 50$ for all 3 which may not run compared to one 8HP engine that does run for 40$ but has a broken pull rope problem?
Buy the 8 hp engine, it sounds like it will need a new brake cable and a new pull rope, but it will be better handling, better performance and longer life. Check the rebuild status by the number of hours on the engine, and weather or not it takes straight gas or an oil/gas mixture? Some of these engines require a rebuild after 50 hours or 100 hrs etc. Keep tract of the hours you put on the engine too. The pull ropes usually break because someone tries to start it and the break wasn’t releasing. If you know what your doing you will be ok with it. You can tell your friends that your getting an 8 hp engine because it is less money and only needs minor repairs, not because you are trying to outdo them. They should understand and you can let them try it out once and a while so they can see if they might want to upgrade too.
