The radiator must keep the engine at the right operating temperature, a key aspect for obtaining maximum performance from the engine itself and ensuring its reliability. For this reason, any improvement related to this accessory and to the entire cooling system can bring additional benefits to the kart’s performance. Hence, the development of radiators is continuous and New-Line Racing, a leading company in the production of karts’ radiators know this very well. Amongst the latest innovations offered by the Italian company and analyzed in the TKART article “RS NEW: the new kart radiator from New Line Racing for 2020” stands out is the water inlet conveyor with a curved design, designed to distribute the water with a homogeneous jet along the entire width of the radiator’s core, allowing for optimal use of all the cooling capacity which the core itself offers. In addition to this new innovation, New-Line Racing has introduced a double water passage. First, the water goes through 50% of the core, then it is pushed back towards the apex of the radiator and returns downwards going through the second 50% of the core, so that the water remains inside the radiator for a longer period of time, therefore cooling it down even more. The research has even gone further. In fact, if previously the use of radiator’s cores was done for other automotive sectors, on this occasion New-Line Racing has designed a radiator’s core with technical characteristics aimed at satisfying the specific needs of karting.

The idea of the MAX core was devised by Marco Malverti, the owner together with Alberto Frigeri and Massimo Benedetti of New-Line Racing, analyzing a radiator intended for Formula 1 cars. In particular, the analysis focused on the distance between the fins that are arranged vertically which compose the core itself. The radiator core of an F1 has fins which are closer together when compared to that of a standard radiator of a car that is driven on roads every day. Hence, the technicians of New-Line Racing have identified this “rule” that relates the average speed of the vehicle with the number of fins of the radiator’s core. The lower the average speed of the vehicle, the more spaced apart the fins are. The standard core used so far in karting, derived from that used for production cars, is designed for a vehicle which impacts the air at an average speed higher than that of a kart on a track. It can be deduced, therefore, that an everyday car, given its average speed, will be hit – and with it, its core, – by a jet of air with higher pressure than a kart traveling at lower average speeds. For this reason, the quantity of fins of a car radiator will necessarily be excessive compared to the quantity of fins actually useful and necessary for a core intended for karting use. In the light of this analysis, at New-Line posed themselves this question: is there a vehicle which travels at an average speed similar to those of a kart from which to “borrow” the core? Well, it sounds strange, but the answer is, “Yes, a truck”. Therefore, by analyzing the cores of industrial vehicles, it was understood that for karting it was necessary to adopt a different FIN PITCH compared to that of cars, thus moving towards the FIN PITCH values more in line with those of truck radiators.