Not Your Average Joe
by Racer 450 Staff
Racer 450 spends an afternoon with one of the nation's most prominent and respected engine builders you probably haven’t heard about. Joe Wolters talks about building, racing and everything ATV.
Four Stroke or Two Stroke?
Four strokes have dramatically improved, especially on the valve angles and how tight the tolerances can be on liquid cooled engines. It can be made to run the way people want, especially for Motocross. Two strokes always had the power people wanted but you always had to be on the pipe. On the new four strokes it’s there at the bottom and it's there at the top.
Single or Double Cam?
On a double cam you’ve got more moving parts, you’ve got more weight. It seems to make more power in most instances, look at cars. Most of the new high performance cars have DOHC engines. A single cam, it’s always worked for Honda. Everyone else likes the DOHC concept.
Electric or Kick Start?
Everything was kick start, now people are like, hey, I’ve got a kick start. The technology wasn’t there and now it is. They are small, they only weigh a few pounds. We don’t have forty pound starts now days. People seem to like it, you hit a button and it goes.
How about a Kick Backup?
Definitely.
Were are engines going?
Definitely not bigger. There has to be a cap on size or it’s going to get out of control. Racing may move back to the 400cc range as technology improves. There are utilities out there that will do 80. Were does it stop? We don’t have tractors that go 80.
(laughs)
We may even see some small displacement v-twin engines in the future.
Engine - Page 1